| Memento |
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| Rating: Good Distributor: Newmarket Captiol Group Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense MPAA Rating: R Running Length: 1 hour, 53 minutes Release Date: March 16, 2001 (limited), wider March 30th, 2001, and April 6th 2001. Director: Christopher Nolan Cast: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Harriet Sansom Harris. |
| Plot: Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) suffers from a rare case of short term memory loss. Ever since his wife's rape and murder he can't make any new memories. He knows however who he was, and everything up to the accident. With this condition he has to track down the man that killed his wife and ruined his life. To keep track of everything that happens to him he has to take polaroids and writes notes on them about the person in the picture. Also, he has to write notes to himself, and even on himself. He has elaborate tatoos all over his body. Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) seems to want to help Shelby, but could be using him. The same goes for bartender Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), who has also lost someone- or has she? The whole story is told backwards in short segments. The end chronologically is the beginning of the film, and the beginning chronologically is the end of the film. |
| Critique: Memento is different, and often entertaining. The whole film will keep your intention, until the ruin of an ending. It is also hard to follow, but not because of the backwards time thing. It is hard to follow because everyone backstabs Leonard and lies to him. Even Leonard lies to himself, as well as to other people. In that sense it is a corrupt movie. It is a bit gimmicky, but not nearly as bad as say Time Code. Of course, it is also much better than Time Code. Memento is very well acted by Joe Pantoliano, and Carrie-Anne Moss. It is also very well directed by Christopher Nolan. The writing however, adapted from his brother Jonathon's short story for the screen by Christopher himself is not great. It is fine, but not great because it is so dissonant and foul. Nonetheless, it worked for a while as a very guilty pleasure, an incredibally fascinating, captivating, if a bit odd film. I can't say the idea of working backwards should be done again and again, but it has promise. I liked the music by David Julyan very much, but the cinematography by Wally Pfister was surprisingly stale and devoid of feeling. I can't help shaking the feeling that this is the sort of stuff X-Files does much better. In fact, there was an episode very similar to this movie that was cleaner, and done at a higher artistic level. I'll give Memento credit though, for a film pursuing the current fad of tricky neo-noir it is vastly superior to last year's Croupier. Croupier, like Memento was a critics favorite, and undeservedly so. Memento has a lot more going on in its head, even if it is also weird and twisted. The real problem with this film though is its boring, pretentious ending. It does, however keep with Memento's insistant theme of being unlikable and hard nosed. Despite a ludicrous ending, Memento's originality and often entertaining aspects shine through. It is very recommendable, but be ready to be disappointed at the end. review by supernothingman |
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