Review of Memento (2000) by Bazsa1 — 19 Jun 2014

Christopher Nolan's Memento is movie that was surely a pain in the *ss to make. If the plot wasn't interesting and complex enough, they decided to put the scenes in reverse order and to have another storyline where the main character Leonard is talking on the phone with somebody. Both was a very interesting and innovative way to tell a story.

The story is about insurance investigator Leonard Shelby who has short term memory loss. He can't make new memories and he forgets everything what happened to him recently in about 5 or 10 minutes. His last memory is his wife dying. He decided to find the guy who killed her no matter what. He makes notes, tattoos, documents about the recently acquired information and takes photos of people he met, cars, places he was in recently and with these thing he tries to find the guys named John G.

Christopher Nolan's genius is perceivable in this movie. Showing us the scenes backwards is clever because it shows us how Leonard sees a situation. When a scene starts we know as much about his status as Leonard himself. That makes the viewer sympathize with him and acquaints him/her about his "condition". And later we find out why the other storyline is important to the whole story..

So many positive things, why do I give this movie only a 7? The film is brilliant in it's plot, it's cinematography, it's directing, it's dialogues. But apart from Sammy Jenkins's story it didn't make me feel anything. The more I used my brain while watching it the less emotions I felt. There was no moral at the end. Hell, there wasn't even any kind of end (you'll see). The movie didn't make any emotional connection with me. The mystery and the story was interesting and complex, but apart from that, it didn't make me want to watch it again.

Still, this movie is well-written and mind-bending, and if you liked any of Nolan's movies, you'll probably like this one too, but it's not as receptible as "Inception" or the Batman movies for example. You have to pay attention to the main story and to the tiny info bits too to fully understand it. And it's obvious that they worked their *sses off till the premiere. And I respect the effort they put in this film. I recommend watching it at least once if you like complex stories or Nolan's works, or both.