The Ultimate Mind-twister

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2005)

There are a lot of excellent movies whose scripts rewrote the rules of cinematic storytelling (the Oscar-winning The Usual Suspects and Pulp Fiction are two good examples). Memento deserves a place among those films: it's the most complex, original, innovative, intriguing achievement I've seen in a while. Thought The Matrix was confusing? Think again. Memento looks like an ordinary film noir, having all the conventional elements (femme fatale, unreliable characters, ambiguous protagonist/narrator, bleak ending), until it fatally strikes you with its originality and audacity, making you unable to stop watching.
From the beginning you realize you're not watching the usual thriller: the reversed opening sequence is a fascinating narrative choice, and even more fascinating is the director's decision to tell the whole story backwards, with each separate scene ending where the previous one began. Thanks to this trick, the audience is as confused as the movie's main character, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a peculiar DIY detective who wants to find the bloke who raped and killed his wife (CSI's Jorja Fox). The problem? Because of an accident, "Lenny" has lost his short-term memory, so every new event is gone from his mind after 10 minutes. He has to go on with his life by taking notes, snapping Polaroids and putting tattoos all over his body. He also gets some valuable help from a cop, "Teddy" (Joe Pantoliano), and a barmaid, Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss). But should he really trust them, given he can't almost even trust himself ("You don't even know who you are!" "I'm Leonard Shelby. I'm from San Francisco." "That's who you were! Not who you have become!")? Writer/director Christopher Nolan knows how to build up the tension, as well as add emotion, with the touching parallel story of Sammy Jankis (Stephen Tobolowsky), a man with the same disease as Leonard.
Both Pearce and Tobolowsky are superb as the two troubled men: the former makes you feel as uneasy as he does almost immediately, and he's got some really ace lines ("How am I supposed to heal if I can't feel time?"); the latter, on the other hand, is heartbreaking, his experiences make us wanna cry before the film's over. Pantoliano and Moss are very impressive too, their true intentions remaining unclear until the end.
For those uninitiated to Nolan's genius, Memento is the perfect way to start. For fans: watch it alongside Batman Begins and you'll experience an amazing day in your life.