The big difference

Rating: Null/10 (31 May 2001)

I earlier commented on the mood and the score of "Memento," which evoked other California psychological dramas/thrillers like "Heat" and "Safe." After seeing it again and looking at recent reactions to the film, I can say that Memento isn't the 9th best film ever made. What it is becoming is a little hope to movielovers who are losing faith in theaters. They had 80 movies at Sundance, and only 8 of them found distribution. Even Memento, the Grand Prize winner, can only make it into 450 some theaters in the country, (despite having the fourth highest amount of money per location in the States according to Philadelphia Inquirer stats.) Meanwhile, at Cannes, Miramax picked up two films out of all the competitors, and the Palme D'or winner, "The Son's Room," was left behind by U.S. companies. (Last year "Dancer In the Dark" won this award.)
Harvey Weinstein explained the American art market is saturated, but it's saturated because we've stopped putting really edgy stuff into the art theaters...now even the ART theaters have to have commercially viable material, because our multiplex-dominated theater landscape is rejecting anything but the simplest stuff, never mind foreign films. Box office stats are like Scripture these days: they allow guys like Bruckheimer to claim that 75 million on Pearl Harbor's opening weekend revealed the quality of the film/audience response to it. All the opening gross for the first few days ever indicates is the quality and level of the hype for the movie in the days before it opened. Variety doesn't even necessarily come with a 24-theater multiplex- it just means they'll show Star Wars Episode II on 5 screens, in half-hour intervals, leaving the struggling films aside.

I bring this up because Memento is a perfect case of a really good movie that SHOULD be making box office records but has been ignored because of a little complexity and no megastar power. People are saying it reminds them of the Sixth Sense. Sorry, but without that ending and the performance of Haley Joel Osment, The Sixth Sense is not nearly as well-made a film as this. Christopher Nolan's directing abilities, the writing, and the performances of his cast distinguish this film as a more than a trick-ending thriller.

I agree the ending is misleading and confusing. However, (SPOILER) it's not Teddy's words that make the ending powerful- it's seeing Lenny deceive himself, destroy photographs of himself, and create another hunt, lying to himself to be happy. Maybe Teddy is the culprit, but the point is that Lenny MAKES him into John G., creates and destroys evidence where he pleases, making his records totally subjective and unreliable, despite his claims to the contrary.

Maybe it's got a gimmick. Maybe us reviewers are taking it too far, but I for one enjoy a movie that plays with our intelligence instead of just hitting us over the head with effects or pathos. If this movie were #1 at the box office, I would likewise get tired of the hype, but instead it's being denied a chance to reach the majority of people. Nolan and Pearce have made probably the best film of the spring, and not enough people are getting the opportunity to see it because of theaters eager to show the pre-determined "blockbusters." I know it's only a movie, but given the general decline, and current lack of faith, within major theaters, Memento is a breath of fresh air.