Its necessary restrictions cripple it

Rating: 4/10 (28 May 2001)

Perhaps since the storytelling technique - unfolding things backwards - didn't knock my proverbial socks off, I'm not terribly impressed with the movie as a whole. I did like it, and it was an enjoyable film, but in its self-imposed restriction of only allowing the audience to know as much as Leonard it becomes victim to that restriction. Some reviews here have mentioned good characterizations, yet I think that despite very good efforts by the performers, there was no room for character development because of the very limits the movie imposes on itself. Its greatest achievement is in leading the audience to believe that what Leonard knows - what Leonard holds as "certainties" - are all true.
MEMENTO is good, and worth seeing. I just feel that its own narrative rules, clever as they may be, prevent it from the "fleshing out" that it seems to need.