Review of Memento (2000) by Galen M — 07 Jan 2015

There is a certain amount of pretentiousness in Christopher Nolan's film "Memento". Written by Nolan himself and his brother Jonathan, "Memento" has one unique gimmick :its narrative is told backwards. Each scene plays out as if one was rewinding to the previous scene. The exposition then helps to fill in the story. The viewer learns about the main character Leonard Shelby played by Guy Pearce (LA Confidential), a former insurance investigator who is obsessed with finding and killing the man who raped and murdered his wife. The problem is Leonard has a "condition" preventing him from making new memories. Leonard makes sticky notes and tattoos as reminders all over his body, he also takes Polaroid pictures of everyone he meets as an attempt to piece together the mystery. The first thing I thought was how would he know if he ever succeeded? Also how easy it would be for people to use and manipulate someone like "Lenny". Carrie Anne Moss (The Matrix) and Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix) both show up as pieces to Lenny's puzzle that are using him for their own gain.

Memento's California setting reminded me of the far superior film "Chinatown".One can see that visually Christopher Nolan is a strong director. His next few films have proven him one of the strongest directors of his generation ."Insomnia", "The Dark Knight Trilogy", "Inception" are all strong and ambitious films.

Memento is gripping but if you strip away how the narrative is executed, the story is not very compelling. If you were to watch the film in chronological order it's plot is predictable and pretty boring. Pantoliano being killed in the opening scene is the films climax, interesting yes, but it also makes his behavior throughout the film pretty obvious resulting in a flat character. The viewer never really know if he is.

He a cop or a drug dealer, or both. Should we care? I didn't.