Written by Stephen Whitty/Newark Star-Ledger

The funeral of a loved one ends with a burial. The mourning? That never stops.

It was half a dozen years ago that Tyler’s brother committed suicide. It’s been a decade since Ally’s mother was killed in a subway mugging. Their gravestones are well-weathered.

But it’s their survivors who are really the worst for wear, stumbling around New York, clumsily hurting each other.“Remember Me” brings two of them together, as Tyler meets Ally at college. Yet while their romance is sure to dominate the advertising — the star is “Twilight” phenom Robert Pattinson — it isn’t the whole point.

The real relationships being explored here are between parents and children, the living and the dead.

Fathers, really. Tyler’s father, well played by Pierce Brosnan, has reacted by withdrawing from his family, as if that will keep him from being hurt. Ally’s father, brought to life by the fine Chris Cooper, has turned overprotective, as if that will keep her from being hurt.

“Remember Me” is sensitively directed by Allen Coulter (who last did the underappreciated “Hollywoodland”) but it’s really a Pattinson project. (He also helped produce.) It’s a smart one, too, building on his “Twilight” persona as the sensitive yet dangerous bad boy.

It’s not a new movie character, of course — James Dean certainly did OK with it — but Pattinson smartly tweaks his own persona, dropping the “Twilight” neo-goth in favor of contemporary realism, playing Tyler as both moody and mischievous.

The script, from first-time screenwriter Will Fetters, serves other characters less well. Tyler’s mother needs more fleshing out. His roommate is strictly comic relief. And while Emilie de Ravin is appealing as Ally, we never get a true sense of how loss has affected her, outside of a few carpe-diem quirks. (She always eats her dessert first, just in case.)

Yet Pattinson’s hero is well drawn, emerging as yet another descendant of Holden Caulfield. And Brosnan, who is having a very busy year, is fiercely effective as the withholding dad.

Young “Twilight” fans (and their parents) should be warned that this is a far more realistic and adult romance than the beloved vampire saga. Movie fans should know that the story takes an abrupt third-act twist, and tacks on the sort of arbitrary, “significant” ending that’s better left to first-year creative-writing assignments.

But Pattinson’s young, and older, fans? No need to worry at all. The boy is growing up — and into someone interesting.

Rated: B

Opened March 12th 2010
Running time: 112 minutes.