Remainder

A waking nightmare is intricately brought to life in this slick, self-aware adaptation of Tom McCarthy’s celebrated 2006 novel. The book has been compared to Charlie Kaufman’s similarly existential movie ‘Synecdoche, New York’ (2008), and on the screen the parallels are impossible to ignore. If you’re one of the small but vocal crowd who consider Kaufman’s film to be a solid gold masterpiece, don’t miss this.

The rest will probably be more apprehensive. Tom Sturridge is intentionally unlikeable as Tom, a young amnesiac who receives a huge financial payout following a bizarre accident. Haunted by images of a block of flats, an old woman and a boy, Tom uses his money to hire Raz (Arsher Ali), a fixer who can literally make his dreams come true.

Director Omer Fast takes pains to ground McCarthy’s strange story in icy, almost bland car-advert visuals. The clash of ‘reality’ and dream-logic can be bold and funny: a conversation about cats falling off a roof is wonderful. But it can be off-putting too: there are certainly no likeable characters here for us to cling to. The result is sleek, pretentious and puzzling, but intriguing.