Dec 05 2008
B+ Movie Review: Memento
I recently saw a list of 19 films that would make great “Midnight Movie” features. For those reading this that don’t know what a Midnight Movie is, I’m not talking about the early showing on Thursday night for a movie out on Friday. I’m talking about movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Eraserhead, movies so weird that theaters wouldn’t run them during respectable hours and so they ran them at midnight when no one was out but the freaks and weirdos. Those freaks and weirdos turned these films into cult classics and the watching of them into an event. How many times you’d seen one was a badge of honor, back in the days where you actually had to leave your house for two hours plus to see a movie.
The whole “Midnight Movie” thing still lives on, but it’s not quite what it used to be, now the domain of those who are determined to keep it cool on purpose rather than those who made it cool by accident. One of the movies that might have an audience with this crowd is Memento.
Memento is about as above ground as an underground film can get. It was an Oscar and Golden Globe nominee as well as a commercial success. Still, I think most people didn’t hear about this movie until it was already on DVD.
If you still haven’t heard about the movie, here’s the basic plot: Guy Pearce plays a man who has no short term memory. He can hold onto about fifteen minutes of time at a stretch. To compensate for this, he takes pictures and writes notes to himself, but some important things he keeps tattooed on his body. He’s searching for the man who killed his wife.
What sets this movie apart from it’s fellows was that the director, Christopher Nolan (you know, from Batman Begins and Dark Knight), decided to tell the story backwards. We start at the end and work our way forward, leapfrogging back in time one bite sized chunk of story after another. We see the world as Pearce’s character sees it: confusing, disoriented and sudden with just enough of a theme running through it to keep it all together.
Memento is a pretty impressive film for the sheer balls it took to make. It also showcased Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity from The Matrix trilogy) and Joe Pantoliano (also in The Matrix plus about a thousand other movies), their performances providing a set of solid counterpoints to the central perspective of Guy Pearce. The movie is worth watching more than once and to some extent may even be required, just to catch all the nuances that the unique telling offers.
I want to point out this film’s flaws, but to my amateur eye I found none. The story is compelling, the direction well done and the acting outstanding. This movie is worth renting, worth owning and perhaps worth committing to memory (which is ironic).
Memento is a B+ movie and you might not need me to tell you that, but let me do so anyway. It might help you remember.
