Memento

MEMENTO

Rating: A-

This was an interesting movie - the type whose plot demands your entire undivided attention if you're ever going to follow it. Definitely not the kind of film to have playing in the background as you're folding laundry. But then, people who fold their laundry in movie theaters always annoyed me anyway.

Guy Pearce plays a man whose brain has lost the ability to form short-term memories. His entire life is composed of taking Polaroids of his motel, his car, and all the people he meets so that he can have some hope of ever remembering them again five minutes after he leaves them. He has important notes to himself indelibly tattooed all over his body so that his memory will constantly be refreshed. Into this debilitating situation is thrown his search for the man who raped and killed his wife.

Director Christopher Nolan plays up Pearce's disability for all it's worth, giving us a confused, almost structureless narrative as Pearce struggles to make sense of the recent violent events in his life. Scenes are shown out of order, partially repeated, and sometimes left hanging until much later in the film when their significance becomes apparent. I can easily envision some viewers being put off by this approach, and to be truthful, I found an entire movie of such shenanigans to be a bit tiresome. But for the most part it was an intriguing experience, and possibly worth a second screening.

Nolan gets a good performance from Pearce, as well as from Carrie-Anne Moss as a woman who helps him track his wife's killer. Also on hand is Joe Pantoliano as a man who repeatedly claims to be Pearce's friend, but of whom Pearce is highly suspicious. There's something about Pantoliano's mannerisms which I always find convincing, and here he's absolutely perfect in the role; he's halfway between the friendly guy you bowl with every Thursday and the sinister thug you're afraid to turn your back on.

Pearce's condition leads to some scenes of dry humor, such as when he's in the middle of a chase with a gun-wielding assailant and suddenly forgets if he's the one pursuing or fleeing. In other scenes, characters admit taking advantage of him to his face, confident that he'll forget the conversation in a minute or two anyway. Then there's a scene with Moss in a bar that - well, let's hope you've finished your popcorn by then.

The one drawback to this film is the lack of a really grand, bring-down-the-curtain-to-thunderous-applause payoff at the end. Not that the ending is bad, but after such a long buildup over the length of the movie, it just seems a little flat. It's also a little ambiguous over what was ultimately supposed to be true and what wasn't, although it's relatively clear how you're supposed to interpret it. But being the skeptic I am, I couldn't help thinking that the final revelations lacked substantiative proof in their own right.

I should warn you that although this film isn't exceptionally violent for an R-rated movie, there are a few scenes deliberately intended to be shocking.

ADDENDUM: There's further discussion of some of the plot points in this film in the Mail Bag section. WARNING - CONTAINS SERIOUS SPOILERS.