-Story-
Memento follows the escapades of Leonard Shelby. Leonard's sole mission in life is to hunt down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The one snag in his plan. Ever since the incident Leonard has lost his short term memory. He still knows exactly who he is, he remembers his life, but he just can't form any new memories. He doesn't remember his hunt, he doesn't remember the people he meets or what he's doing. Every five minutes or so everything in Leonard's life just sort of fades away.
A truly inspired and unique story Memento manages to take the reader along with Leonard on a wild, twisted mystery. One of the most interesting film techniques I've seen, well at least it's one of the most effective uses of fragmented storytelling. The film manages to take the viewer along with Leonard by showing us the storyline backwards. That isn't to say that the story runs backwards; we simply watch a five minute vignette of Leonard's life and then jump backward in the story to watch the five minutes before the last one started. It's a weird trick that I can't say I've ever seen done before, but it effectively puts the viewer in the same situation as Leonard. We don't understand the cause (at least not right away) we are simply thrust into the effect. This is really storytelling at it's finest.
That's not even getting into how well drawn out these characters are. Leonard has a really strange and disreputable set of friends in this film. And because of the nature of the story we don't necessarily understand their motivations. It's an interesting way to go about things and the fact that all of these characters are so layered and textured add greatly to the effect.
-Look-
This film looks very good. It must have been a nightmare of continuity. Actually then again they might have been forced to shoot this in sequence or at least partially, because some of the effects that I mentioned before aren't even revealed until the end of the film. Regardless of how they did it, I was very impressed with the look of this film. The cinematography was decent all around, intense, appropriate, but the great touches here were in the Art Direction. The carefully placed bullets, the photographs Leonard keeps to remember who and what things are, and of course Leonard's crazy tattoos. These especially shine. Leonard has branded his body with clues to his case. Who killed his wife, how can he find them. It's fantastic and unsettling, I really loved it. Very good work overall.
-Acting/Direction-
Memento boasts a very good cast of smaller, but intense actors. It seems Christopher Nolan, the director, was very lucky to get such talents on their rise to fame. The main man, Leonard is played brilliantly by Guy Pearce. Famed as the rat in LA Confidential, this is, in my opinion the best film he has made by far. He is great as the smarmy, determined widower. But that isn't the end. His character like the rest is layered and complicated. Just when you think you've got a handle on Leonard, he starts talking about his wife, and pulling off so fairly cheesy dialogue with class. Pearce, fits wonderfully into this role; he feels so innocent because he doesn't remember his present life, but he's not naïve at all. A really great job overall
The other two main actors in this film are Carrie-Anne Moss, and Joe Pantoliano, both of Matrix fame. Moss is sharp and conniving, and Pantoliano who is a great underrated character actor and a pleasure to watch anytime is at his best. Pantoliano especially, as Leonard's manipulative quasi-partner Teddy, really shows some teeth giving a stellar performance. In the end the actors we're all excellent. They made me want to understand their secrets, and expose their lying hearts. I loved it.
-Overall-
This is a very cool film. The acting is fresh, and the story is captivating. Check this movie out.
