"Reverse Psychology"

Rating: 8/10 (2 March 2006)

Memento breaks away from the normal crime/mystery movie by making the main character lacking in short term memory. I must say that I didn't know where the movie was going at first, but as the movie progressed I understood that it was taking the viewer back from the first event we saw to how we got there. The writers did an excellent job staying consistent with Leonard's (Guy Pearce) short term memory loss, and they did an even better job of not revealing to the audience any more than Leonard knew.
The best way to keep the audience in the dark about the course of events as much as the main character was to do the story in reverse with each significant event Leonard could remember. Although most movies/stories progress chronologically forward, this movie went backwards event by event in order to find out what lead Leonard to the point we found him at the very beginning of the movie.
As I stated before, the movie was done excellently. The only negative I would have to say is the lack of answers in the end. In the end I probably had more questions than I did in the beginning. I wasn't looking for a total resolution, but I guess I was looking for a little more than what was given.