Memento (2000)
Now... where was I?
THE SUMMARY: A guy with short-term memory loss hunts down his wife’s murderer while bad actors take advantage of him. If you like boring, pointless stories told confusingly in reverse chronology, this one’s for you. Personally, I wish I had short-term memory loss so I could forget the time I wasted watching it.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER ALEX M: A great story of revenge and morality that has always made me question what is perceived and what motivations people might have and that underestimating anyone or anything can be a fatal mistake with dire consequences.
JAMIE AND JEANNE’S SHOW AI ART FOR THE WEEK:
Caesar went to a nice farm - everyone knows that.
Plot twist - John G is actually a superchatter.
Lines just like Blonde wrote ‘em.
THE BEST:
An okay twist: Yeah, wow - Leonard is Sammy, and Sammy is just a memory he made up to repress the reality of what he did to his wife. Sure, I didn’t see it coming. Sure, there are some interesting questions about just how reliable memory and witness testimony really are (probably not very). But is that tiny payoff really worth a confusing, disjointed, nonsense plot line that takes way more effort to follow than necessary? No, it is not.
A moment of comedy in the Natalie-Leonard fight: The fight between Leonard and Natalie is the highlight of the movie. A series of great lines culminates with ‘you know one of the causes short-term memory loss? Venereal disease. Maybe your c**t of a f**king wife sucked one too many diseased c**ks and turned you into a f**king retard!’ Followed by a proper right hook to her face. Great scene.
The bright spot of an insufferable movie.
Teddy explains it all
THE WORST:
We get it - he can’t remember stuff: Between Leonard’s constant internal monologue and the infinite quest to snap polaroids and write notes, it’s just a boring movie. Sure, I get they have to keep doing that stuff to maintain the image that Leonard legitimately can’t remember stuff (though he often does for reasons completely mysterious), but it makes for a boring, repetitive movie. What day is it? Where am I? Who’s that guy? Why am I here? It’s closer to a White House transcript than a proper movie script, which made for another boring, repetitive internal monologue in my own head. What is the point of this movie?
And the way he can’t remember makes no sense anyway: Even though Leonard is constantly reminding the other characters, the viewer, and himself of the rules of his memory loss, he breaks those rules on convenience frequently. How does he even remember where he’s going when he drives around town, if he can’t remember what Natalie said just a minute ago without writing it down? If Leonard remembers nothing after the attack on his wife, how does he have the memory to suppress into the Sammy story in the first place? After Leonard kills Jimmy, Leonard tells Teddy about the $200k in Jimmy’s car, but Leonard has already forgotten killing Jimmy at that point.
Hell, how does he even remember he has this condition at all? He remembers nothing after the attack, except a very long list of things to serve the movie’s needs. It’s frustrating, inconsistent viewing that doesn’t follow its own rules.
A boring story scrambled is still boring: Just because most stories are told chronologically doesn’t mean there’s any inherent value in doing the opposite, and telling a story in reverse. Just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s good. You can paint the sky green and the grass blue, but is that really ‘creative,’ or ‘inventive,’ or have you just made things more confusing than they need to be?
What does Memento actually achieve through its reverse order? You could have the same plot points presented normally, and it’s just a mediocre story. A guy thought this other guy killed his wife, but it turns out nah. Turns out he did it himself and repressed the memory. The end. Tell that story forward, backward, or whatever way you want, it’s still a shrug, and a who the hell cares?
I don’t want a jigsaw puzzle: I’ve read those who defend this movie explaining some of the prior inconsistencies or contradictions by theorizing that maybe Leonard is actually faking his condition. Maybe the plot holes are intentional because Leonard doesn’t actually have memory loss - he just lies to himself, as is his own admission at the end.
If that’s the intent, I hate it. Don’t make me invent some new story to explain the movie’s nonsense. I understand people enjoy playing Sherlock and piecing together some secret story themselves. I don’t. I don’t want to imagine my own ‘good story.’ I don’t want to find my own ‘good story.’ A good movie tells me a good story, and doesn’t send me on a scavenger hunt to do the writers’ job for them. There’s a reason a great painting and a jigsaw puzzle are different things. One is a work to admire, and the other is just… work.
THE RATING: 2/5 Wickies. Boring, confusing, but appropriately very forgettable. I give a Wicky for the twist and for the ‘diseased c**ks’ line.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇ Note: if you get a notification saying you have already voted and you haven’t, this is because of an issue with iOS (Apple mobile devices). Try voting on a desktop or laptop computer.
NEXT WEEK: In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE! December’s nominations are from listener Stephen. I’m told that Return of the Living Dead 3 is its own independent story, hence we’ll allow the sequel. Note: if you get a notification saying you have already voted and you haven’t, this is because of an issue with iOS (Apple mobile devices). Try voting on a desktop or laptop computer.
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