actually substantial filmmaking or "cool" fluff?

Rating: Null/10 (3 July 2001)

I recently saw this movie with a group of people who just couldn't stop talking about it afterwards. I watched for an hour or two as they tried to riddle out the mysteries of Leonard Shelby's "condition," of his strange trip, and of his connections with his friends. Finally, I couldn't stand it any more: what relevance, I asked, does any of this have to do to the supposed "deeper issues" that the movie half-heartedly attempts to make us believe that it has raised? No one could tell me precisely, but they assured me that, once I'd thought about the plot and figured out what REALLY happened, I would know.
I disagree. I see this movie as the latest installment in Hollywood's latest string of movies which try to sell themselves (and succeed, usually, very well) solely through a thick layer of "gimmicks," that is, tricks of the trade that make a movie look "cool." Memento has gimmicks galore: time moves backwards, in clips of a few minutes each; there is a "frenetic" and disjointed narration by the main character, repeating key bits of dialogue, mantra-style almost, to drive home his neurotic-ness (which seems to be very cool at the movies these days); there is a confusing plot that's hard to follow; and there is the traditional twist ending.
I challenge those who I can already hear complaining that these aren't "gimmicks," but essential parts of the plot structure, to ask themselves why these things are so essential in the light of what the movie takes to be its central object, memory. First of all: why does the action move backward in time? I could probably come up with some long, convoluted "film-school" answer to that question, but it wouldn't be a good one. The best answer seems to be: because it makes the movie look cool, and because it gives the added benefit of giving us a surprise ending. Since it's probably not a very important gimmick, we should imagine what the movie would be like without it; I think most people wouldn't like nearly as much.
While many people are content spending hours trying to figure out Leonard Shelby's shoe size, I personally couldn't care less. What annoys me about films like these is the fact that they're so dishonest; Memento, like Fight Club, American Beauty, and Pleasantville before it, seems, on reflection, to be trying most of all to make people say to themselves, "wow! what a smart movie" without actually BEING a smart movie. The few incredibly weak philosophical insights (such as the one at the end of the film) convince people that, buried under the convoluted heap of an impossible-to-follow plot, there's actually something deep and worthwhile. The surprise ending only makes this more blatant; Memento, like so many movies today, is aimed at making the viewer want to see it again in order to "get it better." But my suspicion is that there's really nothing to get; even Tom Tykwer's Winterschlaffen ("Wintersleepers"), from which the plot concept for Memento seems to have been lifted, treats the subject better. My suggestion: see an honest movie, one that doesn't need plot twists or obscurity to say something interesting or important, like The Seventh Seal, or a movie that uses plot twists and confusion in an honest and compelling way, like Hitchcock's great masterpiece, Vertigo.