A review on Mr Nobody

A very, very old and possibly senile man lies in hospital in 2092 and gradually recalls key fragments of his life in a jumble of flashbacks, flash forwards, near-death experiences and fantasy in Belgian filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael’s Mr. Nobody, an ambitious, if uneven, experimental sci-fi romance that is less a thought-provoker than a dazzling juggling act.

We learn our protagonist’s name is Nemo (Latin for “no one”), a sly reference to Jules Verne’s underwater captain considering this Nemo can’t swim, an important factor in several path-altering decisions. The emotional crux of the film is a brutal scene in which nine-year-old Nemo (Thomas Byrne), whose parents are divorcing, stands on a train platform and is asked to choose whether to leave with his mother (Natasha Little) or stay with his father (Rhys Ifans). We see three versions of him as a teen (a fine performance by Toby Regbo) and as a 34-year-old (Leto) which result from him taking both tracks, so to speak, of that childhood decision.

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