Clever, but lacks some depth.

Rating: 8/10 (18 June 2001)

The most memorable, remarkable thing in Memento is obviously its structure. The story of the film is told backwards, scene by scene. This unorthodox choice of narrative form has two purposes: firstly, it creates unique twists by showing an character act, and only afterwards revealing the (usually ambiguous) motives behind the action. Secondly, the narration helps us to identify with the main character, Leonard Shelby; Shelby's brain is damaged, and he therefore loses his short-memory several times a day. Like Leonard, the audience doesn't know what happened to him before his latest fit of amnesia. Also, like Leonard, the audience does know what happened to him before the assault that caused the injury. So we know that his wife was killed, and that revenge is the only thing that keeps him going.
As a structural exercise, Memento works perfectly. The backward narrative may at first seem like a gimmick, but soon one can see what a great way of telling a thriller story this is. What happens on the screen can never be taken in face value, since we never know the history behind the latest occurence. Because we know the ending we think we know the whole story, but the story reveals itself to be far more complicated than we thought. Every new revelation puts the things we previously saw into new light, right up until the very clever ending (which chronologically begins the story). Like many recent thrillers, the film ends with a surprise twist, but unlike in most of these thrillers, Memento's surprise ending doesn't render the rest of the plot illogical (Ã la Fight Club). The director Christopher Nolan made this exact mistake in his previous film, so it's good to see he has learned something.
Sadly, exceptional story structure and an unique main character are not enough to bring true depth to the film. The basic story, if told chronologically, is intriguing, but not in any way exceptional. Guy Pearce does a great job portraying Leonard Shelby; still, his character faces such an extraordinary situation, that the audience can hardly sympathize or understand him. The overall feeling of the film is cold. Also, Mementos script touches some interesting issues concerning the nature of memory, but the inertia of the plot itself soon wipes over these larger themes.
Despite the criticism, I think Memento still is an original and mind-boggling puzzle, well worth tackling. Great brain food, but not much else.