Review of Memento (2000) by Alfred W — 21 Nov 2015

Memento causes our brains to exercise immensely throughout, and requires you to sit down and relax for a substantial duration afterwards to fully regain your state of mind.

I haven't seen a film that asks so much of the audience in order to appreciate the entire narrative during the first viewing. Some will adore this complexity, others may dislike it and stick to movies with a straightforward plot structure. However there's no denying, the Nolan brothers have produced an incredibly unique story.

I'm not entirely sure what qualifies as a spoiler, since the movie is told backwards, so I'll somewhat describe the general structure and themes that are explored, all of which are generally implemented and executed impeccably. Nolan has essentially taken an already complex plot, cut it into twenty pieces, ordered the second half of the pieces into a backwards order, added one of the first half's pieces in between each of the other half's pieces and had them told in a straightforward order. So when we reach the ending, the two halves come together.

Guy Pearce does an excellent job in the lead role. His character, Leonard, obtains a short-term memory loss condition after an attack on him and his wife. This prevents him from being able to remember things for longer than several minutes before forgetting them, all he can do to inform himself of past events is to write notes or tattoo his body with messages. Our protagonist always appears in a fairly neutral mood, since he barely has time to develop immense anger or happiness before forgetting everything up until the attack. The angriest we see him is when he receives messages that he doesn't understand, or doesn't receive them at all and is left with a situation to deal with that he can't figure out.

This is the film that truly gained Christopher Nolan the recognition that he deserves. If this doesn't blow your mind the first time, or even intrigue you to a degree of vast confusion, then rewatch it, and it will.