Leonard Shelby, the hero of Memento, has to find ways to remind him not to forget his wife.
Leonard (Guy Pearce) suffers from the rarest of conditions.
He can no longer form memories.
He forgets things and people as soon as they have passed from his immediate consciousness.
Leonard insists he does not have total amnesia.
He remembers that he was an insurance investigator in San Francisco with a home and a loving wife. He remembers all that was shattered one night when two men broke into his house. He was so fast asleep he didn't hear them, though his wife did.
When she went to investigate, they raped her and planned to murder her. It was at this point that Leonard woke up and rushed to discover what was happening.
One of the men pushed Leonard's face against a mirror shattering both it and Leonard's memory. Leonard has vowed to find and kill the men who took away his life.
His revenge has taken him to a seedy motel in Los Angeles and into the company of a man named Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and a woman named Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss).
Memento opens with Leonard shooting a man and then begins to unfold backwards to the specific event a couple of days earlier that led to this killing.
Writer/director Chris Nolan has purposely structured Memento to be as puzzling as possible for the viewer as the quest for vengeance is for Leonard.
It takes about 40 minutes before it becomes clear that the information Leonard seems to receive in a specific scene is not to be trusted.
Things may have happened just prior to the scene that changes it completely.
Nolan compounds the mind-bending confusion by having the film unfold in two time frames.
The one in colour is more immediate than the one in black-and-white.
This is a film that demands the viewer's complete attention. No talking. No leaving for bathroom breaks or concession refills.
Miss even a few minutes and you'll be more confused than poor Leonard, who can never be certain what is truth and what is manipulation.
Even when the film comes full circle to the shooting there are enough loose ends to demand an in-depth discussion or even a second viewing.
Nolan has created an utterly fascinating film that juggles the conventions of the whodunit and film noir.
Armchair detectives will find it difficult to keep up with Nolan let alone get a few steps ahead of him.
Fans of film noir thrillers will revel in the moody atmosphere Nolan is able to sustain for almost two hours.
Pearce's central performance is as compelling as the film's premise and Nolan's execution of it. In Pearce's hands, Leonard is a time bomb with a short fuse. He's definitely dangerous yet he's also vulnerable because he can be manipulated so easily.
Don't be fooled into thinking Pantoliano's Teddy is around for comic relief or that Moss is merely a conventional love interest.
Absolutely nothing in Memento is what it seems.
(More on: Memento).
(This film is rated AA)
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