A group of people try to exist in a world without memory in Embers. After a global epidemic, the population of the world have forgotten how to remember. Various people try to move on with their lives, including a guy (Jason Ritter) and a girl (Iva Gocheva), who are supposedly lovers, a teacher (Tucker Smallwood) constantly researching his books, and a man (Karl Glusman) who causes nothing but chaos. Meanwhile, Miranda (Greta Fernández) has survived with her memories intact in a bunker with her father (Roberto Cots), however she desires to escape into the outside world.
Embers is a post-apocalyptic science fiction drama, in which a past epidemic has resulted in the bulk of humanity losing memory. The population of the world wanders around aimlessly with no memory of who they are, with any new memories being lost after a short period. One of the only people to retain their memories is Miranda and her father, even though Miranda’s isolated existence in a bunker is too much for her to bare.
The most simple description of Embers is that the film is Memento on a global scale. The film alternates between a half dozen or so different plotlines, as it shows life in this world without memory. While this is undoubtedly an interesting premise, Embers ends up being a bit of a slog in its execution, with no real single protagonist to latch onto. Perhaps the only exception is Miranda’s story, which is the most interesting of the bunch, with Embers possibly being better if it only showed the events from her perspective. Still, Embers can be seen as a pretty interesting reflection on the importance memory has in our lives.
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