The movie I chose to review was Memento. The movie follows Leonard, a man unable to form new memories, as he tracks down his wife’s killer with the help of a man named Teddy (or maybe John Edward Gimmel) and a woman named Natalie. Since Leonard can’t form new memories since his wife’s death, he keeps track of his leads (and just basic information with his life) with notes, polaroid photos he always carries and, for the most important pieces of information, tattoos on his body. The events are shown in reverse, with the first scene being the last to occur chronologically. The movie has so many twists and turns it is incredibly difficult to give a synopsis without spoilers.

 

The best thing about this movie is the writing. The way the story unfolds is just so damn perfect that it overshadows the quality of everything else, not to say it isn’t a great movie in general. It's almost like an investigation looking backwards to see why and how something happened. Every sequence has a “synching” moment at the beginning and end, to connect it to another sequence in the movie. Since there are a huge amount of details that are explained as it goes along, eventually your brain learns to pick up on things that be important later. Every sequence asks as many questions as it answers and yet somehow everything is tied up in the end. That’s not to say anything seems obvious at the conclusion, just that all the puzzle pieces are there for your brain to continuously think about and make new realizations. It’s the kind of movie you can’t watch and be done with, your head will be reeling after finishing as it pieces together what just happened.

 

The acting in this movie is wonderful. Guy Pearce takes a role that could easily be played as a caricature and brings real life to it. The stand out for me was Joe Pantoliano (I’ll admit, I had to look up his name) who plays Teddy. Throughout the movie, Teddy is a character who we don’t really know how to feel about. Pantoliano manages to be both the most likable character in the movie and yet be a bit scumbag who you feel uneasy about. His look is also perfect, you get a real sleazy vibe from him with his hair plugs, mustache, and constant smile, while this is offset by him doing things seemingly to help Leonard. The movie as a whole has many characters full of mixed intentions up until the end.

 

The cinematography in this movie is great, but mainly in an average sort of way. There weren’t any shots that stand out, the lighting is always pretty basic. It is Christopher Nolan, so it isn’t going to be bad, it just doesn’t emphasize its visuals, which works when there is such a good script to work with. If you watch only for the cinematography, you’ll notice that it is very well composed throughout, but it is standard enough that it doesn’t stand out. It does try a few interesting things here and there however. Even though using black and white for flashbacks is a bit of annoying cliche to me, it did work in this movie. It highlights the unevenness of Leonard’s memory. Also since it is only ever used for one moment (Leonard describing the story of Sammy over the phone) it is useful just to orient oneself in the movie’s timeline. Another thing it did was have the very first moment of the movie play in reverse, literally time moving backward. I don’t really like this, it seems gimmicky and isn’t really necessary even to show that the movie will be backwards.

 

Overall I super recommend this movie. It is an amazingly written movie that is well done. I can’t believe it took this long to watch it, as it’s been on the top of my watchlist for years now. It lived up to my expectations and blew them away. There’s always a mystery throughout the movie, and yet no question is left completely unanswered. There are few movies that have this many plot threads and manage to be narratively satisfying for all of them.