Mind-bogglingly, breath-takingly brilliant - insanely original and intelligent

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 2016)

Mind-bogglingly, breath-takingly brilliant - insanely original and intelligent.
A man, Leonard Shelby (played by Guy Pearce) has just shot and killed another man. Why did he do it? Through scenes shown in reverse order (with individual scenes separated by another set of scenes shown in forward order), we unravel the mystery.
Christopher Nolan's second movie. His first, Following, was great and showed his penchant for clever, original plots. Here he exceeded himself - Memento is probably the cleverest, most original movie you'll ever see.
The reverse order thing is a brilliant concept in itself, and as far as I know the only other movie to try it was Irreversible by Gaspar Noe (released after Memento, so Memento did it first). Irreversible was much more simple in its method - just play the scenes in reverse order.
However, with Memento, Nolan goes one step further. By having intermittent forward-moving scenes he helps add backstory. These eventually meet the backward-moving scenes, closing the continuity loop and making for a seamless, continuous story.
Furthermore, it is not the reverse order of the scenes alone that make this movie brilliant. Reverse order scenes without a solid plot behind them would just be a gimmick, and this is certainly no gimmicky movie. The plot itself is brilliant, and ultimately explains why we have to see the scenes backwards.
Moreover, despite the enormous complexity of writing and staging such a concept, in the end everything fits and makes sense. Nolan also leaves just enough ambiguity and mystery behind so you can fill in your own theories and backstories.
This movie deserves every superlative a movie can get.