Certainly A Unique And Interesting Premise

Rating: 5/10 (21 September 2009)

It's certainly a unique concept. Leonard, played by Guy Pearce, is a man who has no short-term memory after being attacked when trying to save his wife from a rape-murder. The rest of his life is spent in a quest for revenge - a revenge he can't remember if he's ever been able to achieve because he has no short-term memory. That's an interesting enough premise, the added piece here being the decision to offer us the story in reverse chronology - beginning with Leonard killing the man he believes to be his wife's killer (played by Joe Pantoliano) and then scene by scene retracing the story, going back just a bit at a time to fill in the details of his search, and how he came to the conclusion that Teddy was responsible. Essentially, then, the viewer is pulled into Leonard's own condition - seeing what's happening with no clue as to how it came about because we haven't seen what came before. Edited into the regression scenes are black and white scenes in which Leonard, holed up in his hotel room, essentially talks about his condition and seems to fill in some essential details about his past.
It's an interesting way to present a "whodunit" - because the question all the way through is whether Teddy is actually the killer. The ending offers up a twist - although it isn't the biggest surprise you'll ever see, if only because the way the movie is put together you're conditioned from the beginning to expect pretty much any twist possible, it still leaves open a decent bit of uncertainty about who actually killed Lenny's wife. So, the premise and construction of the story is interesting enough. Also interesting, though, is that - while it's intriguing - I just didn't find it particularly enjoyable to watch. Perhaps it's because I didn't buy Leonard's condition - for one reason. He used photographs to jog his memory, so he took pictures of important people, places, etc,. to refer to when necessary. What's wrong with that? Well - nothing, I suppose, except that I found it passing strange that, for a guy who supposedly forgets everything within a couple of minutes of it happening, he always knew exactly which pocket to find the pictures in. He NEVER had to search for one of his photographs; there was never even a moment of hesitation when he had to refer to one. That's a small point, perhaps, but it caused a bit of a credibility gap for me. The movie's well acted by the leads and interesting enough as the pieces of the puzzle are sorted out, but for me it fizzled a bit on that admittedly relatively small point. 5/10