Anna (2013)

I have just watched this film and had to review it. I didn't recognise any of the cast bar Brian Cox who plays a very small role and I only know young Farmiga as the sisterr of Vera. But she presented a very complex and intriguing character in this film. From the very beginning it is engaging and well paced. It never quite lets up on the intrigue and it does a brilliant job of making you not want to look away. Once you learn the rules of the memory diving you find yourself trying to deconstruct the entire plot to figure out what is actually going on. I came across this film by chance and can't find much about it. But it is a very good psychological thriller with very good twists and turns. Some obvious and some a little more confusing. It is well worth the watch, the two lead characters play their roles seamlessly and the ending leaves a bitter satisfaction in your mouth.

Fmovies: This movie has one of the best openings ever, thrilling,containing a lot of suspense and well directed, which could also be said about the movie as a whole. The lead actors were quite excellent as well. The movie effortlessly keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout...going into one dimension into another,demanding your focus and attention. So it isn't wishful thinking to expect a great ending leaving an impact on you, but I guess it was. The series of plots and twists in the movie can become a bit too much towards the middle,but it gets on its track later...only to fall over a cliff and crash into the ground at the end. Yep,that's how bad it gets!! Psychological thrillers require a bit of in-depth thinking and attention to enjoy and so does 'Anna'...a great ending could have made this movie a masterpiece but it wasn't meant to be. I would still recommend it if you are into psychological thrillers but do not have high expectations.

I like the idea of reading one memories. Although an old concept from cinematic point of view, I have always found a memory reader interesting, because memories are not a recollection of events. It is an interpretation. Hence, the concept of a memory reader is a trickier than one would expect.

Most of the films and TV shows get this concept completely wrong. Anna was different. It actually showed how memories are interpretations of past events. The psychiatrist in a bid to find out the deep rooted issues of the teenage girl realizes how her memory cannot be completely trusted to figure out time-line of events that made her psychologically disturbed.

The movie was extremely engaging till the climax ruined it all. I would try not to give away any spoilers but all I can say is the ending is utterly insipid, lack-lustrous and a total spoilsport to what could have been an inspiring psychological thriller. It seems as if the director Jorge Dorado did not wish to provide a twist in the end but did it just for the sake of giving one! What a sad sad way to make a disaster!

Do not waste time on this movie. Period. Exclamation mark.

Anna fmovies. This is a highly suspenseful and cerebral mystery , filled with red herrings , twists and turns . This is a thrilling Spain/Britain co-production being well paced , intriguing and skillfully made . It is an agreeable if overly familiar story about a "memory detective" charged with rummaging through the repressed recall of a troubled young woman accused of a terrible crime . The producer/director Jaume Collet-Serra who made successes such as Orphan, Unknown, Non-Stop brings us another stirring picture , ¨Mindscape¨ or ¨Anna¨. Exciting and moving picture with a complex intrigue , nice character studio , suspense , a lot of killings and full of flashbacks with a peculiar spectator : the same protagonist John/Mark Strong . As its deals with John, a mind detective (Mark Strong, in his first leading role in a feature film), plays paid to enter people's memories and uncover the reality behind their alleged crimes . As John enters her mind and becomes more involved in her sometimes brutal memories , he must decide if she is indeed the victim of unspeakable trauma or a very clever and manipulative sociopath . With a combination of hand-holding and a little bit of coaxing he can enter a person's memories, whether they be formative or traumatic, and while he can't interact with them his observations reveal information that can be used later in therapy or criminal trials . Due to a traumatizing event in his past that ends up coming back to haunt him, and ultimately negatively affecting a session . But what will he make of his new assignment, the brilliant but troubled teenager Anna ? (Taissa Farmiga as Anna, as the picture is known here in the States, is called by its original title of Mindscape) .

Jorge Dorado's brain-twisting horror-thriller , from the beginning, the film keeps the audience interested, hooking you immediately with a strong start . The film contains tension , thriller , drama , mystery and plot twists , including decent suspense with tense sequences especially in its final part , in a unexpected denouement , near of the end . Decent thriller in which nothing is the way it seems , the atmosphere is already tense and the twists and turns are the best part of this movie . Hitchcock-style psychological thriller , being surprisingly realized and compellingly designed ; however this efficient production no match for a forgettable screenplay. There is something riveting about the concept of a person with the ability to get into another person's mind, with also having the ability to experience their memories , as the film is an experience, full of the thrill of a universe that involves memory detective agencies . The original as well as entertaining idea is overspread throughout the movie , but not totally satisfactory , including conventional pitfalls and the flick attempts to get you in the mood for some memory-scouring detective work . Mindscape is a suspenseful horror with a fantastic twist , though also packs some flaws and gaps . The motion picture is pretty well , although sometimes stagy and packs excessive turns ; however is entertaining for continuous suspense . The story is narrated by means of flashbacks about past and present , realizing a complex as well as interesting crossover . The film was noteworthy for casting some of the finest actors in England . Nice acting by Mark Strong as a memory detective with the ability to assist in solving crimes by getting into the minds of witnesses . Anna is played with effortless panache by one of America's best upcoming talents - "Am

Based on the reviews of this movie that I read on this site, I went into this film with high hopes. 90 minutes later,I was truly perplexed as to what all the buzz was about. Maybe films today are so bad that even "average" rates as "very good"? Well, I don't know, and while the film was not a total waste of time, it had little to offer,and was not as half as interesting as the reviews had lead me to believe it would be. The good: The beginning of the movie is very well set up: the movie takes place in the not too distant future where there are people who have the ability to recover and view the memories of others. The protagonist of the movie is a broken down memory reader in need of money and so he goes back to his old employer in search of a job.He is given a "simple" assignment: get a very precocious teenager to eat. But said teenager is *very* smart and not what she appears to be... Both the male lead (the returning memory recovery expert) and female lead ("Anna",the teenager) are played very well. The bad: Very convoluted plot, which devised to make the movie intriguing,in the end was a little over the top and maybe too clever for its own good. The ugly: The ending. Much ado about nothing. I was surprised that after all the complex twists and turns in the move it all came down to (what was in my opinion) an ending that is simple but unfortunately didn't really make much sense.

After the development of the secret experiment of persons with the ability to enter in other people´s memories, the justice system accepts the evidences presented by recognized memory detectives. John Washington (Mark Strong), from the Mindscape Agency, is a former detective that had a stroke two years ago after the death of his beloved wife and is retired. However he needs money and asks his former chief and friend Sebastian (Brian Cox) if he could find a new job. Sebastian offers a simple case of a wealthy teenager, Anna Greene (Taissa Farmiga), who is refusing to eat and to help to make her stop her hunger strike. John learns that Anna is an intelligent girl that lives in a fortress and is monitored by surveillance cameras by her family. Further her stepfather wants to send her to a boarding school, but her mother does not agree. Soon John and Anna bound to each other and John starts his investigation through therapy sessions. As far as John goes deeper, he finds past secrets that may be causing her present behavior. Are his assumptions correct?

"Mindscape", a.k.a. "Anna" is an intriguing thriller with a screenplay with many plot points, some of them good and others bad. The performances of the lead Mark Strong and Taissa Farmiga are great and the story holds the attention of the viewer. But the disappointing commercial conclusion is quite silly and the question is: was it necessary to a smart girl like Anna to plot such complex stories to get rid of her family and travel the world alone? Wouldn´t be easier to flee from the boarding school and simulate her death in another way? How could she be using her money if she was considered dead? My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Regressão" ("Regression")