Spoiler (non-)alert: there are no spoilers in this review
A few weeks ago while driving home one night, my friend Sam and I had a discussion about Christopher Nolan. I told him that I didn’t have a high regard for his films, which Sam thought was impossible. Now, admittedly, I haven’t seen all of his films. So, giving Sam the benefit of doubt, I decided to go and watch them all.
First off on my list was Memento. This wasn’t his first release of course, that being 1998’s Following. However, Memento had been on my watch list for years, as it was recommended a fair amount of times by friends and colleagues.
Memento, released in 2000, follows Leonard Shelby (Guy Pierce), who is afflicted with anterograde amnesia. An affliction which causes the inability to create new memories. We follow Leonard on his quest for revenge for his deceased wife, which is the last thing he remembers. He does this while he also tries to follow the notes he left for himself on previous resets to uncover the identity of the attacker.
It’s a good premise and enough to get you hooked, and if you’ve seen Brooklyn 99 you will understand how the basic idea works. The film is split into two parts, with some scenes in colour and the others in black and white. While watching the film, you have to uncover what is happening and how the clues Leonard has left behind all link, while Leonard is actively doing the same thing.
The story was written by Christopher Nolan, and based on an idea by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. On a cross-country drive through America, Jonathon pitched the idea to Christopher who loved it and eventually read a first draft of the novel. He had his own ideas, however, and wrote a screenplay which he shared with his brother. They went back and forth with drafts which eventually lead to this film, Memento, and Jonathon’s short story Memento Mori, which was published in 2001. The novel was wildly different, however, with the only common themes being the split time lines over the story and the main protagonist being afflicted with anterograde amnesia.
The movie does well to communicate the jumps through time and you don’t need to be too far through the movie before you understand the general idea of how the story is playing out. From the first scene, you’re just working out how Leonard gets to the endpoint.
The movie is shot beautifully, with the scenes of black and white giving a real ’40s noir feel. Scenes of Leonard sitting on his bed in the motel room is a little bit of a cliched trope, but it’s effective at giving us a pause in the story and bringing us back in.
The other scenes that are in colour are used to the same effect, usually being longer and drawn out, and having a noir detective following the case. There are many scenes filmed in cars throughout the movie and done incredibly well, never feeling confined or losing screen space. Nolan makes full use of the interiors and the actors’ movements for the audience.
My biggest critique of Christopher Nolan films has been that he is often jumping around too quickly, with scenes feeling too short and his dialogue going by too quick to be able to take in what was just said. Memento doesn’t do this, thankfully. Instead, it’s a slow paced movie with a lot of deliberate and lengthy scenes that drag out the suspense and intrigue.
Guy Pierce, as always, is fantastic in Memento. He flows through this movie in a constant state of confusion and frustration, but also awareness. He makes the audience link with him, only ever knowing what he does, and carefully explaining the changes in his head space.
The two supporting actors, Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss, are also exquisite in this film. Joe Pantoliano does a fantastic job of playing a slimy Teddy, making it seem like there’s just always something off about this character to Leonard. While Carrie-Anne Moss pulls you in with her performance as Natalie and makes you feel for the girl.
Unfortunately, however, the dialogue is still quite low compared to how loud the other sounds are. It may have been my speakers, but I found I sometimes needed to turn up the volume just to make the characters heard. This is an issue I often find with Nolan films, so nothing much has changed. It’s not too terrible, but it can be felt a lot when the scene shifts between colour to black and white.
The pacing sometimes got to me as well. The first third was gripping but after I had figured out how the movie was plodding along, I do wish it had more shifts and changes. But instead, there are long periods where not much new is uncovered that we hadn’t already worked out. Its not that it was too slow, I was happy that it was, but I do wish some of the reveals had a bit more of an impact as it did early on, and weren’t as easy to guess.
My biggest issue, however, is the ending. I won’t go into much detail, but to me it felt like the climax of a sum of ideas and then Nolan ran out of steam. I felt like he hadn’t exactly figured out how to resolve it in a satisfying way. I kind of just felt myself going, “is that it?”
I did look through some threads online discussing it and apparently in the DVD commentary, Christopher Nolan does say the test audiences take the ending very literally, and kind of alludes to him thinking the ending is a bit more ambiguous. Unfortunately, I just don’t think the execution was all there.
All up I am very glad that I watched the film. I think it’s one of those noir movies everyone should watch at least once in their life, and I wouldn’t be against revisiting it later down the line. It’s possible that after having more time to sit with it, I might enjoy it more. I might even give the chronological cut a chance next time.
It’s worth a watch: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½
Photo by Matt Dive