Rating- * * * * * (5/5)
If you know me, you know that while I have a varying taste in movies, I almost always like movies that are different; different from the bland, normal, formulaic, trite, predictable, Hollywood manufactured movie. If there is one word I could use to describe this film, it would be different. The story is pretty basic; a man (Guy Pearce) is trying to find the murderer of his wife. The format, however, is anything but basic because, you see, there is a catch, and it’s a wonderful catch; our hero has no short term memory. He can remember everything that happened right up until his wife’s murder, but after that he can only remember things for about two or three minutes before his memory is wiped clean. In order to give us the sense of confusion and disorientation that someone without any short-term memory might have, the director, Christopher Nolan, has put the scenes of the film in reverse order. In other words, each scene in the film actually takes place a few minutes before the scene we have watched just prior to it (there is an episode of Seinfeld done in a similar format). We learn bits and pieces of the story at a time, trying to take the information we get in each scene and try to apply it to the scenes we have already watched. We know what happens at the end, but we don’t know what it means, why it is important, or how the characters got to that point. The confusion is magnificent. I don’t want to give away any plot details because figuring out what happened is the fun of the movie. Guy Pearce does a great job as the memory-challenged man and really convinces us that he doesn’t know what is going on, but yet not really worried about it. He has figured out a system to help himself remember important details by tattooing clues about his wife’s murderer onto various parts of his body. He also carries a Polaroid camera with him, taking pictures of people he meets and writing his thoughts about them on the back of the photos. He finds out scene after scene that he is being deceived by one of his friends but can’t always remember which one. This movie is so much fun to watch over and over and try to figure out and the acting is fantastic, with supporting performances by Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos, The Matrix) and Carry-Anne Moss (The Matrix). This has kind of film noir feel to it, with the dark photography and all the deceptions and twists in the plot, but the backwards format totally prevents it from being categorized. This is creative moviemaking at its finest and it is one of my favorite films of the year. If Christopher Nolan keeps up this creativity, he has a long, successful career ahead of him.