It’s been a couple of decades since I watched Branagh’s Hitchcockian romantic thriller, Dead Again. In fact, it had been so long that I completely forgot about the uncredited appearance by Robin Williams!

But from its opening shots, and it’s driving and powerful score by Patrick Doyle, I was taken into the sweeping narrative. In modern LA, private detective Mike Chuch (Branagh) has a mute amnesiac (Emma Thompson) come into his life, and through some unorthodox treatment, hypnosis, the story plunges them and the viewer into a 1940s murder mystery that seems to be directly tied to the lives of Mike and the amnesiac he calls Grace in the 90s.

With some help from an antique collector, Madison (Derek Jacobi), Grace is guided repeatedly back to the past as they attempt to discover the truth behind the decades-old murder and whether it was the husband, Roman, murdering his wife, Margaret, or something more.

Branagh proves that he’s got a knack for visual storytelling as he directs the film with seeming ease, and both he and Thompson are fantastic on camera, grounding their 90s and 40s personas in reality while hinting at the connective tissue that ties them as we learn the story is taking us into reincarnation and past lives territory.

And each moment, each reveal, as they play out is done brilliantly, and though things are definitely telegraphed the film never dumbs itself down for its audience. It’s a sweeping romantic film and its tension gets amped up just right.

Rounding out the cast is Andy Garcia as a newspaperman in the 40s, Gray Baker, the expert on the Strauss murder case, Wayne Knight as Pete, another newspaperman in the 90s who is helping Mike and Grace, and there are also appearances by Jo Anderson (the karma for her character is interesting), Campbell Scott and Raymond Cruz.

Sure, I hadn’t seen the film since before 2000, and sure, I knew how it ended (and amazingly I remembered a lot of the dialogue and music cues) but I still got completely wrapped up in the narrative. Dead Again is a superior thriller that falls very much into the Hitchcockian film style, and features some stellar performances that are a delight to see onscreen, all the little character bits that tie one storyline to the other, connecting them, and making the film one engaging whole.

I know Branagh has directed a number of other films, but this one is always going to be my favourite.

“These are for you!”