Wow. Truly Hitchcockian. Brilliant.

Rating: 10/10 (30 July 2001)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Don't read too much about this film - the more you know the less you'll enjoy it. It's all about not knowing too much, you know.
I thought this was the kind of man-who-lost-his-memory tries to find out what happened. I was *very* wrong. Instead, this is man-who-forgets-everything-after-a-few-minutes tries to find and kill the man who killed his wife. The problem is that, having no short-term memory, he has to rely entirely on his notes and polaroids. Still, he succeeds, and in the first second of the movie, actually while the titles are still running, shoots the man.
The remaining two hours are a reconstruction of what happened before. This story is told backwards, so as to make sure the audience never knows more than the man without memory knew at this point. Throughout the whole film you never stop wondering just what happened before, and when that little extra bit of information finally arrives, you're either even more puzzled, completely surprised or you'll find everything is logical. But still you'll want to know what happened before...
Even at the end, when most things seem to be clear, I couldn't stop going through the film over and over again, trying to reconstruct the events. So even after you know what happened, you may want to watch this film again -- I surely did.
Excellent script, excellent acting. Guy Pearce as the man without short-term memory is just brilliant in all his naiveness, obsessiveness and vulnerability. Even better (I think) was Joe Pantoliano as "Don't believe in his lies" Teddy. He was just perfect in all his sleaziness, adding wonderfully to Pearce's paranoia.
I was a bit disappointed by Carrie-Anne Moss as Natalie; somehow her character did not seem fully developed. I'm not sure if this was due to the script or just not very enthusiastic acting. The scene where she gets hit seemed particularly weak, she just didn't ring true in that situation.
Editing and photography was perfect, too. The two timeframes (one moving backwards, in color, and one moving forwards, in black and white) may confuse some viewers at first, but as soon as you get the concept, this is no longer a problem and you'll constantly want to know what happened before.
Never since Hitchcock has a movie so perfectly covered a peculiar mental state combined with an obsession ('Vertigo' and 'Spellbound', perhaps also 'Frenzy', come to mind); hardly ever has this be done with such an intriguing technique. The humour, which is mostly deadpan, is also very reminiscent of Hitchcock. Yet this is no pseudo-hommage à la Brian de Palma; this is a very original film.
Again: don't read too much about the plot of this movie before watching it, because the plot is really finding out the plot, and once you've done that, you'll never be able to watch the film again with the same eyes. You *will* want to watch it again however, just to find out what you missed the first time.
Never had such an easy 10/10. This is going to become a classic.