First of all, let me say that if you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to read someone else’s opinion. Although I review "Memento" here, it leads to more of a discussion of the film, and various theories about it. If you don’t mind the incredible plot twists being spoilt, then go right ahead. If you have seen the movie, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what follows.

The Review

“Memento” is an excellent thriller that fully deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as “The Usual Suspects.” It doesn’t quite deserve the same with “The Third Man,” but that’s hardly a negative comment. Yes, it is confusing at first, but as you watch it, more becomes clear. The best part of the film is the way the audience is kept firmly where the director wants them. The screenplay must have been terribly difficult to write, as Nolan had to remember what Leonard knew, what he’d forgotten, and what the audience remembers. But it is tense, complex, and compelling. He makes us believe things that we shouldn’t, trust people we hardly know, and yet creeps behind us to deliver some shocking twists.

A great deal of the success of the film rests on Guy Pearce’s shoulders. He has to make Leonard believable and likeable, even though his condition is extremely hard to understand or identify with. We accept everything he says at the start, because we have no one else to believe in. When we read his notes regarding facts or people, we believe them. After all, who doesn’t want to help someone who has a permanent disability, and whose wife has been murdered?

Pearce definitely rises to the task. He looks genuinely confused whenever Leonard is, and still burns to avenge his wife’s death. Even if he, and the other characters, are a vehicle for the plot, Pearce manages to make us feel for him, rather than have us simply viewers. We want him to succeed.

The other performances I enjoyed were given by Joe Pantoliano as Teddy, and Mark Boone Junior as Burt. Pantoliano is a character actor who has done significantly better with his career over the past few years (in “Bound”, “The Matrix”, “The Sopranos”), and has a “don’t trust me” appearance, but a pleasant enough nature such that we do like him, a little at least. Burt has suffered long enough listening to Leonard explain his condition, but is polite and listens anyway. He doesn’t have too many qualms about ripping him off, though.

Much of our opinions of the supporting characters is at the mercy of the screenplay. As well as the twisting and turning side to it, it takes a great deal of skill to make the audience dislike Teddy so much and end up liking him, and feel the same in the opposite order for Natalie. It took more than just a repeated flashback device. The way they act when we meet them each time changes how we perceive them, and as I mentioned above, we depend totally on Leonard’s polaroids and notes for the first hour or so. They tell us how to feel at the start, but when we start thinking, we decide for ourselves.

It's interesting to look at our first meetings with Teddy and Natalie: Teddy shouts out `Lenny', which we're told is really annoying; Natalie is bruised, gives Leonard some information and gets him to bring up memories of his wife. Who wouldn't we like more? Watching the film for a second time, I noticed things like bruises disappearing, and the car window not being broken, that were clues as to the order the scenes happened chronologically. Of course, the first time around, it's more important to know what's going on.

Some people have found the film terribly confusing – when I watched it, I was confused during some of it, when the director wanted me to be. I will say that every scene is important, and that if the movie has been running for two minutes, don’t walk in. Yes, everything happens in what at first seems a totally random order, but things begin to make sense. I deliberately refused to read or hear anything about the movie until I’d seen it, and it helped a lot in enjoying it. Mercifully, the pacing of the film is not at breakneck speed. If it had been, all information in the film would have gone right over everybody’s head. But editor Dody Dorn was able to control the rate at which we absorb everything.

If, and when, I see this movie again, I will update this. Much of the praise and commentary on “Memento” has (deservedly) been about the screenplay, direction, and Guy Pearce. I look forward to discussing what appear to be almost forgotten aspects, such as the technical aspects of the film.

When all is said an done onscreen, the film has answered quite a few of its questions, but left a whole heap more for the audience to dissect. There’s a line in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”: `A mental mind-f*ck can be nice.’ Christopher Nolan knows it too well.


Looking more deeply

The backlash against the film is headed by the question “How does Leonard know he has a short term memory problem?” That question is answerable: first, the non-spoiler answer. We know that Leonard responds to conditioning – he recognises that Dodd’s room isn’t his, and early in the film talks about needing to have a system - he knows how to live through routine. He may be less affected by the syndrome than Sammy Jankis; maybe somebody (a doctor) told him often enough that he has the condition, and he now knows it.

The spoiler answer involves another question: “Is Leonard a psychopath?” Sammy Jankis may well have been an invention (he conditioned himself into believing it, maybe? - Teddy tells us that Sammy did exist, but that the story gets better every time as Leonard adds details that Teddy knows are about Leonard, not Sammy), and the memory loss syndrome might have been a device Leonard uses to hide his guilt and protect himself from prosecution, as who could have a case against someone who can’t remember what’s going on after a few minutes? I certainly don’t believe he was an insurance investigator – look at the way he is dressed at the end (chronologically the beginning), and insurance investigators don’t drive utes. Also, an investigator would know to get a receipt on instinct. His condition hasn’t affected his thinking ability, just his memory. Leonard knowingly writes down a note to kill Teddy, whom we now like, also knowing that he won’t remember the reason, but only that he must do it. The implication is that Leonard is Jankis (and thank you to DJ1s, who pointed out the quick shot of Leonard as Sammy in the nursing home), and that he killed his own wife after she *didn’t* die in the attack. Did he kill his wife knowingly, because she called him `Lenny' too often? Teddy wonders whether Leonard will kill every John G in the world, and he certainly looks like trying.


Recommended:
Yes