Movie Review: Jessica Chastain, Peter Sarsgaard Anchor ‘Memory, A Thorny Drama With A Tender Heart
Pain and trauma permeate Michel Franco's new drama Memento, about two lost souls who find strange solace in each other. Jessica Chastain's Sylvia and Peter Sarsgaard's Saul are both prisoners of their own minds, albeit in different ways. They are chasing him. Fail fast. And both are incredible.
"Memento," which opens nationwide Friday, begins as a seemingly ordinary "victim" movie in which Sylvia Chastain celebrates 12 years of sobriety at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting attended by her 12-year-old son. But this dramatic mystery is multifaceted, compounded by an unreliable narrator and moral gray areas. Before you know it, the film goes from something familiar to something completely unexpected.
While not easy to categorize, Memento is a meaningful journey that features standout performances from Chastain and Sarsgaard, who won Best Actor at last fall's Venice Film Festival. While there are moments of understated angst, the film also carries a comprehensive list of caveats when it comes to tough topics, from sexual assault to mental illness to the pretty nasty. It's probably a good thing the holidays are over, because this isn't something the whole family can watch, especially when they're hiding secrets that have turned into generations of trauma.
The film first introduces you to Sylvia, a social worker and single mother who is suspicious of everything and everyone. He always seems ready to run for safety and survival. She lives on a tight schedule, taking her daughter Anna (Brooke Timber) to school, adult daycare and AA meetings. The house was a fortress. once he entered his dilapidated apartment, locked the door three times and entered a security code to arm it.
Even though we know so little about him, it's surprising that his younger sister Olivia (Merritt Weaver) is able to convince him to attend her high school reunion early in the film. The results become more mysterious as we learn more about Sylvia's school days, but it's clear that she felt uncomfortable and unhappy with the events she quickly left behind.
We briefly wonder if her fears and anxieties are justified when she realizes that a man followed her home that night, first down the street, then on the same subway train, then in the same place, to her door. He looked like a nightmare looking for his keys. You held your breath until he entered. A few hours later, the man was still outside watching her. Is it a fantasy? Shall we dream? Oldstyle. Foreign.
This is Sol who thinks he is suffering from early onset dementia. He won't remember following her home or why, but he will remember her for a reason. Her brother Isaac (Josh Charles) asks if Sylvia wants to work for them as Saul's partner.
Both Saul and Sylvia develop a deep bond with each other that goes beyond just being professional goalkeepers. Both are damaged and longing for connection, and their friendship is like a balm until it turns into something else. Without going into too much detail, this relationship presents ethical issues that the film doesn't seem to want to seriously address, leaving Memento feeling at its most underdeveloped. The worst part was that he wasn't even sure what he wanted to say. This movie has one ending that seems happy but leaves fear and anxiety for all involved.
Film can be both an empathy machine and a form of therapy, allowing viewers to play strangers and experience things that might otherwise seem too difficult, too illegal, and too powerful.
Sarsgaard is brilliant as a man dealt bad cards, whose body still functions but whose mind can't be trusted. He is not the only one. Sylvia also suffers from memory loss, as do members of her family, such as her ex-mother, brilliantly played by Jessica Harper. All this turns into suffering, secrets and shame.
Memories may be imperfect, this film reminds us, but emotions are rare.
"Memento," a Ketchup Entertainment film currently in limited release scheduled to open in theaters nationwide on Jan. 5, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for "graphic nudity, some sexual content and strong language." for": . Duration: 110 minutes. Four to two and a half stars.
