An Engrossing Puzzler

Rating: 7/10 (18 February 2008)

A lot of filmmakers have gotten their big breaks on the foundation of films that are, upon closer inspection, more stylistic than substantive...and while there's nothing wrong with an overly stylistic film, its accolades can erode with the passage of time, especially if there isn't much under the glossy surface. What's interesting about Christopher Nolan's "Memento" is how its stylistic touches are synthesized within the narrative itself; furthermore, the backwards-flowing narrative also becomes an extension of our protagonist's robotic, detached, and "system"-oriented way of living. Guy Pearce plays Leonard, an average man who loses his short-term memory after his wife is murdered, and embarks on a quest to catch and kill the guy who did it; he holes up in a fleabag motel, tattoos clues on his body, encounters a downtrodden bartender (Carrie-Anne Moss) and a man claiming to be a cop (Joe Pantoliano), all while flashing back to a extended phone conversation wherein he tells the tale of a man with a similar condition. As played by Pearce, Leonard is like a postmodern vision of the 1940s noir detective, a perceptive Everyman driven to find closure; his performance is properly detached, only randomly showing traces of normality, but Nolan's structure cleverly plays like a visual extension of Leonard's mental processes, putting us in the midst of his search. Moss provides solid support (and sheds her "Matrix" persona gracefully) as the noirsih femme fatale, and Pantoliano keeps us guessing as the mysterious "Teddy." While many other films have borrowed "Memento"'s structure since, few have made it feel so justifiably vital to the credibility of the plot overall--to "start" at the very end of a story and move backward to the beginning is a daring move, and Nolan is confidently aware of how the preceding events truly gives the conclusion its impact.