Memento

Christopher Nolan got off to a pretty good start as a filmmaker with Memento. While this technically wasn’t his first feature (with that being the 1998 short crime thriller, Following), it was the first to get him significant attention, as this neo-noir psychological thriller released in the year 2000 centred around a man with short-term memory loss trying to find the culprit responsible for murdering his wife, captivated viewers and critics who responded quite favorably to its gritty style, amoral characters, elaborate themes, and non-linear structure (which would become a staple of Nolan’s work going forward). With glowing reviews, a decent box office, and a cult following to boot, Memento may no longer be someone’s favorite Nolan film (since they now have a lot to pick from), but it’s certainly one of his most polished and showed the world what he could provide.

A former insurance investigator named Leonard ‘’Lenny’’ Shelby (played by Guy Pearce) has dedicated his life to tracking down the man responsible for murdering his wife, but this proves difficult since he suffered an injury on that fateful night which left him with anterograde amnesia, meaning he is incapable of forming new memories and quickly forgets about something (or someone) in the span of a few minutes. This makes it hard for those trying to help him, like his friend Teddy (played by Joe Pantoliano) and a woman he recently met named Natalie (played by Carrie-Anne Moss), but he’s also unable to fully trust them because of notes he scribbled down prior to a memory wipe informing him that they can’t be trusted. Needing to re-piece the clues left by himself in order to remain on track, Leonard will not let his mental debilitation prevent him from getting his revenge.

While not containing any of the flashy theatrics associated with later Nolan films, Memento is an expertly crafted picture with engaging performances, effectively restrained visuals, and a very interesting premise portrayed in a very immaculate manner.

The creation of this story was essentially a family affair, as while Christopher Nolan was responsible for directing the film and writing the screenplay, the idea originally started as a short story created by his brother, Jonathan Nolan (who also wasn’t a name yet in Hollywood). Pitching the idea to see what he thought of it, Nolan responded quite well and constructed a film script at the same time his brother finished writing the story (the movie actually released a year before the short story titled Memento Mori came out in 2001). While this might feel like a sibling stealing the work of the other, the two did work pretty harmoniously together and gave each other revisions throughout the process. Each version had the same outline, but differed greatly in the main components, with the short story focusing on a man named Earl escaping a mental hospital to avenge his wife’s murder, whereas the film is told out-of-sequence and is much more ambiguous about its narrative and direction, allowing both to exist in their own spaces quite comfortably. The film was eventually optioned by the privately-owned independent company, Newmarket, with the help of Nolan’s at-the-time producer girlfriend, Emma Thomas.

Ironically the thing that most critics and audiences adored about the movie (its non-linear storytelling) was the reason the film had troubling finding domestic distribution, as even though it had great word-of-mouth after its film festival run, no big studio in America was willing to distribute as they felt it was too confusing and wouldn’t attract many audiences, which forced Newmarket to distribute it themselves (which is very risky from a financial perspective). It was a risk that paid off however as the movie was a financial hit, and even if people didn’t entirely comprehend what they were watching, they were interested in trying to unravel the web of a story unfolding in front of them. One of the reasons why this might be one of Nolan’s best scripts is that even though the story feels intentionally unfollowable due to being a split narrative which is also told out of order, every scene feels purposely placed which lets the audience pick up context clues and determine what is happening in a very organic and even fun manner. It’s very vague and doesn’t help its audience out too much, but the simple layout of the story, characters and scripting, keeps the film from going off the edge. It’s paced very well, the script is incredibly well constructed, the dialogue is pretty verbose but never arrogantly so, the characters are kept pretty vague about their morality which makes the experience all the more uncertain, and even though this could’ve been a basic revenge story, the narrative hook of memory loss and how that ties into the themes of  purpose, interpretation and personal narratives, makes it feel very special.

Nolan has formed his own personal style over the course of his career, and not all of his tropes are good. While he is able to create a movie that balances hyper stylized reality with blockbuster sensibilities, he can sacrifice deep characters and relatable stories in the process, putting more focus on the spectacle rather than his roles. With that said, because this was one of his first features, Nolan hadn’t developed some of these negative attributes yet, and they are thankfully pretty absent here. The film has a noir stylization that lets the film adopt an underground retro vibe, the writing and story structure is convoluted, but this arguably helps make the experience more interesting than if it were played straight, and despite usually letting his characters take a backseat to the visuals and themes, the lower-stakes and more personable narrative forces him to highlight them more, and it’s all better for it. They aren’t the most elaborate and mainly fit into roles common in crime thriller stories, but how the film plays with the audience’s expectations is what makes them intriguing.

While they appear one way on the surface, the drip-fed pace of the story peels the passive skin off of them slowly but surely, showing that they’re far more complicated and devious than the audience expected them to be. The people who do this the best are Carrie-Ann Moss and Joe Pantoliano, playing characters who can either be conniving monsters or genuinely helpful people, and as the plot progresses (in reverse ironically), the audience is forced to readjust how they perceive them at a similar pace to how the lead does, it’s an interesting angle to take for this kind of story. Guy Pearce doesn’t feel like the most interesting choice for the lead as it seems like other actors could’ve played this role much stronger (Brad Pitt was actually the first option but had to pass due to scheduling conflicts), but he was eventually chosen not just because he impressed Nolan during the casting process, but also because Nolan wanted to keep the budget small and nixing A-list talent was a good way to do that. In spite of not having a strong acting personality, he honestly does a pretty decent job here, playing this part in a way that keeps him from looking stupid and clueless all the time, always feeling like he’s trying to logically and believably piece together the situation even if he doesn’t recall a thing. The character’s own moral standings are also very interesting, and the ending in particular stops on a great closing note, so Pearce doesn’t ruin anything and comes out looking pretty good here.

Nolan would become an effects-heavy, bombastically cinematic director who would continue to experiment and innovate with technology, but since this film only had $9 million dollars to work with, it would need to rely on its actors, story and script to keep people engaged, and it does a pretty good job at that. Because the story is so tangled and the process of piecing together its chronology is in itself a puzzle needing to be fixed, that alone is able to give audiences a fresh new experience, but Nolan is still able to make the film interesting looking despite not featuring any grand components. The fact that the movie is a neo-noir allows it to adopt certain fun tricks of the genre like a black-and-white sequence and a voice over that gives insight into the leads mental state, and since the film doesn’t feel like it’s beholden to any cliches, the story uses these deceptively familiar tropes as a way of throwing people off how it’s actually going to end, taking all the cool and appealing qualities of the genre without being hampered by its negatives.

The film also looks pretty nice both in and out of black and white, as it feels appropriately down-and-dirty through the tight camera work by Wally Pfister, which is also on occasion able to get a fun angle or moment of lighting. It’s also very well stitched together by editor, Dode Dorn, who is as crucial to the film as Nolan, since without her tying this scramble of a plot together in a way that still progresses and continually provides clues without giving the final reveal away, it wouldn’t have worked at all, so major props in that regard. The musical score by David Julyan has a noir-like sound to it, but also has a distinct vibe that would later become a common sound for most Nolan films, as while the piece is ambient and mysterious, the tinny synth tone keeps it from feeling like just a reference to an old style, and the way that some of the hollow repetitive notes feel like they correlate with the lead’s fractured and constantly fading memory, it’s a small but noticeable touch.

Memento is a movie that could’ve easily been mocked if Nolan didn’t fulfill what he set out to achieve, and unlike many others who preach being above normal storytelling and flounder when put to the test, he did prove that he could pull it off, make it relevant to the plot and not just an excuse to show off (which is ironically how a lot of his later movies can feel like). There have been several stories with similar themes, characters and plot lines to this film, yet the way it’s told, and the specific tricks used to conceive it proved that Nolan would grow into a director worth keeping an eye out for, so it’s nice to see even at the start, he already had strengths that would make him a star. The movie might not work for everybody (especially those who can’t follow what’s going on), but considering how strong this script is, how seamless the direction and editing is, and how engaging the performances are, it’s no surprise that it became a hit. Probably doesn’t stand alongside The Dark Knight but still deserves to be eternally remembered.