Nolan is my favorite director from now on

Rating: 10/10 (11 May 2016)

I think the reverse shot is the most splendid part of this movie, inducing the audience to think and reflect after each clip, turning it from a plain psychology movie into a detective movie. We can almost figure out step to step, from Teddy is the bad guy to Natalie is using Leonard to achieve her own purposes, to Leonard murdered Jimmy for god knows what reasons, to Teddy is a cop that is helping Leonard all along and Natalie is punishing Leonard by tricking him into killing Dodd because she knows Leonard has killed Jimmy, to knowing that Leonard made this whole bunch of nonsense up to give his life a purpose. The movie gives you a chronic panic that diffuses slowly in your heart, making you fear about the real world, and even doubting your own memory.
I couldn't tell you how scared I was when Natalie make Leonard punch herself and slip into the car and wait, then come back to the room pretending to be injured by Dodd, then Leonard turns furious and come after Dodd for revenge, but in a following scene Leonard think to himself: "I am chasing him. No, he is chasing me." And Dodd came after Leonard with a gun, because Natalie told Dodd that Leonard was the guy that ran away with a stack of cash and drugs because she wanted to solve Leonard and Dodd together, wishing both of them to be dead. But the misunderstanding between Dodd and Leonard made by Natalie is half true because Teddy, the bad cop, did gave him half the cash after he sold the drug himself. This might be what Leonard himself called "poetic justice".
Sammy Jankis was the character that gave me the most tremendous shock. He was a real person, but he was not the one that injected his wife with too many insulin to cause her death, Leonard was the one. Leonard had to create a false life for himself because in real life he killed his wife by injecting her insulin for three times. When realizing that, I couldn't help feeling more depressed.
Most importantly, this film shows how fatal is this to be completely ignorant of common psychology. Natalie told Leonard when she tried to get him punching her: "How blissful ignorant you are!" Sammy also was so frustrated that she tested her husband with such fatal tool, which caused her own life and Leonard's life too. But from the start, if they get a therapist then everything it gonna be fine. Leonard's wife don't have to die, Leonard don't have to punch Jimmy and wear his suit from the start, and Teddy wouldn't have to die. Leonard suffered from the damage of hippocampus, he could have accepted a hippocampus transplant and retrieve his memory, but somehow his brilliant mind didn't reach that thought. This tragedy wouldn't have happened if they trust science a little more, because neuroscience was advanced enough to cure Leonard in the time of film: 2000.