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Memento is a film written and directed by Christopher Nolan based on his brother Jonathan's short story "Memento Mori." It stars Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Joe Pantoliano. The film was released in 2000 to widespread critical acclaim, and was nominated for Academy awards for Original Screenplay and Editing, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay.

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The film consists of an intricately woven pattern of flashbacks, with the beginning of one scene acting as the ending point for the next (the film's first scene moves from Y to Z, the next from X to Y, and so forth). Interspersed throughout these scenes are black-and-white sequences which progress forward normally (A to B, B to C, etc.). Thus the opening (color) scene of the film is the last event in the story, and is shown in reverse motion to clue viewers into the film's scene progression. Near the end of the film, the color and black-and-white scenes converge into one climactic event.

follows Leonard (Guy Pearce), whose head trauma gave him anterograde amnesia, or "anterograde memory dysfunction". Leonard is unable to form new memories so he is continually meeting people over and over again as if for the first time. To remember events and people, Leonard develops a system using Polaroid photographs, notes, and tattoos — especially clues to the identity of the man who raped and murdered his wife, and who struck the blow that caused Leonard's condition when he stumbled in on the crime.

The film explores memory, identity, time, revenge and reality.

The score was composed by David Julyan.

Chronologically speaking, the story begins with Leonard in a motel room. He engages in a conversation on the phone with an unidentified other party, where he tells the story of Sammy Jankis. Leonard was an insurance investigator and one of his cases was of a man named Sammy Jankis, who suffered from anterograde amnesia. Leonard investigates Sammy's case and determines that Sammy's condition is not physical, rather it is psychological, and is therefore exempt from any insurance coverage.

According to Leonard, Sammy's wife, a diabetic, believes that Sammy's condition is psychological and that he could snap out of it. She becomes more and more exasperated with his actions and decides on some drastic action. She repeatedly asks Sammy to administer her insulin shot, hoping either he will snap out of his condition or if not, she will basically commit assisted suicide. Sammy, unable to remember his actions after only a few minutes have passed, continues to inject his wife. His wife goes into a coma and dies from severe hypoglycemia.

One night, a rapist breaks into Leonard's house and kills his wife. Leonard wakes up and gets into a fight with a masked man. He suffers a blow to the head and falls victim to anterograde amnesia, although it is never made clear whether his condition is also psychological or due to the blow to the head.

It is important to keep in mind that any action that happens before the initial scene in the motel room, the investigation of Sammy Jankis and the attack and rape are known to the movie-goer through Leonard's accounts only. Leonard is a classic example of an unreliable narrator.

Soon after, Leonard encounters Teddy who was assigned to investigate the death of Leonard's wife. Leonard teams up with Teddy to find his wife's murderer- a man who was presumably named 'John G.'

An undisclosed amount of time passes and Teddy meets Lenny at the motel where he's staying. They drive to an abandoned warehouse where Leonard kills a man named Jimmy Grantz thinking he is his wife's killer. Through a dialogue with Teddy, Leonard realizes he has been manipulated into killing a man Teddy wanted dead. At a moment when Teddy seems to be the most deceptive, he reveals that Leonard is the real killer of his wife, via an insulin OD. Sammy was actually a faker who had no wife. Lenny killed the real 2nd attacker over a year ago. It transpires that Teddy initially felt pity for Leonard, and allowed him to get his 'revenge' on the second man he (Teddy) believes raped his wife. Due to the content of the narrative, it is debatable whether this person really was the correct man, but there are equal arguments for and against. Ultimately, Teddy uses Leonard to kill again, though his motivation is unclear. He may have felt that Lenny was ready to try and make the memory "stick", he could have been motivated by a desire to rid the world of drug dealers, or he may have just wanted the money. It could have just been a combination of all those motivations.

It is upon this killing that Teddy reveals a new version of events to Leonard - that his wife survived the rape, that it was accidentally overdosed her. Refusing to believe Teddy's 'lies,' Lenny concludes that he must believe Teddy is his wife's killer. This revelation highlights the crucial ambiguity of the movie: either Lenny has been lying to himself all this time, inventing Sammy Jankis and amnesia to avoid a horrible truth; or Teddy is lying, saying hurtful things as hurt friends sometimes do. Writer Christopher Nolan does not leave enough clues to make any definitive statement as to which is true. Nolan has claimed however that there is a truth and close viewing will reveal all, which is strong evidence that Teddy is telling the truth, since the viewers are only provided answers if Teddy is being truthful. If Teddy is lying we know nothing.

Before Leonard can forget what has just transpired, he writes "Don't believe his lies" on Teddy's Polaroid; whether Teddy is lying or not, Lenny has decided not to listen. In doing this, Lenny sets himself up to eventually kill Teddy (his next note is to tattoo "John G"'s licence plate number--'s license plate number--on himself). Leonard concludes that all people deceive themselves, and that the only thing different is that he is, for the moment, aware of his self-deception. He pulls up to the tattoo parlor just as he forgets, reads the note, and goes inside to get his new tattoo. It is, at this point that the film actually ends.

Continuing, soon after (with the narrative now running backwards), Leonard is misdirected by a note from Jimmy Grant's girlfriend Natalie. He goes to the bar where she works and tells her about his memory condition. Once she realizes he isn't lying, she devises a plan to have Leonard kill a man named Dodd.

Leonard is tricked into chasing Dodd down, however, Dodd finds him first, believing that Leonard is Natalie's boyfriend, Jimmy Grantz. Part way through the chase, Leonard forgets Dodd is trying to kill him and after being shot at (again) ends up running away to Dodd's motel room where he can later ambush him. Once Dodd returns, Leonard captures him and puts him in the closet bound and gagged. Soon he has forgotten why, and he panics. He calls Teddy over and they decide to put Dodd in a car, with which he apparently leaves town.

When Natalie hears that Dodd has been taken care of, she agrees to have a friend trace the license plate Leonard has tattooed on himself. Leonard realizes it is Teddy who owns the car. Teddy's real name is John Edward Gammel — John G. Leonard takes Teddy to the abandoned warehouse in which he killed Jimmy Grantz a few days before and in the first scene of the movie, pulls a gun and kills Teddy. Leonard takes one final Polaroid...

Leonard, the main character, is played by Guy Pearce. After his wife's rape and murder, he suffers from anterograde amnesia. He uses notes, photographs, and tattoos to substitute for his missing memory. He records clues about the murderer because he hopes to have the opportunity for revenge. However, as the plot transpires, Lenny has already had his 'revenge' with the correct individual responsible. He just cannot remember it! He even goes so far as to destroy this memory (picture of him doing the act, covered in blood) so as to never be able to remember it again. Is Leonard a man in the grip of an unhappy past and a neurological condition, or a man in the grip of constant denial? In the end, only the audience can decide.

Teddy's character is played by Joe Pantoliano, a series regular on The Sopranos. He also appeared with his costar from the film, Carrie-Anne Moss, in the film . Throughout the film, Teddy's actions throw his credibility into question. Although Teddy acts as if he is Leonard's friend, he uses Leonard's handicap to his advantage. He never tries to hurt Leonard physically, but he plays many psychological games in order to manipulate him. Ultimately, Teddy is innocent of Lenny's wife's rape; indeed, by his account he initially helped Lenny track down the correct individual responsible. Lenny later decides to burn this memory Polaroid.

. She befriends Leonard, and manipulates him into getting rid of Dodd, a man to whom she owes a lot of money. Her relationship with Leonard, however, is probably the most complex one in the movie. It is here that the film plays a trick with the audience: just as Leonard can remember only things recently happened but cannot remember things long past, we the audience tend to remember Natalie at her vicious and manipulative worst (since these scenes show up late in the movie, but earlier in the chronological order of her relationship with Leonard), but our memory of her at her sympathetic and helpful best fades away.

Sammy is played by Stephen Tobolowsky. Before Leonard's accident, Sammy was one of the clients of the insurance company Leonard worked for, and he was suffering from anterograde amnesia. Leonard's mistaken conclusions about Sammy's condition lead to Sammy losing his insurance. Sammy's condition, and his wife's refusal to believe in it, bring about her death. Teddy's testimony at the end of the film bring into question the validity of Leonard's memory regarding the death of Sammy's wife or indeed, whether Sammy had a wife or amnesia at all.

Mrs. Jankis, Sammy Jankis' wife, is played by Harriet Sansom Harris. She dies of an overdose of insulin after she manipulates her husband into repeatedly administering her insulin shot. She chose to do this either out of some hope of getting her husband to recover or stop faking his condition, or because she was unwilling to live without the old version of her husband. However, Teddy reveals, apparently truthfully, that Sammy Jankis didn't really have a wife, in which case all of Leonard's memories of Mrs. Jankis are actually memories of his own wife. The movie never explicitly clarifies which is the reality.

. He is a clerk at the motel where Leonard stays for part of the movie. Like Teddy and Natalie, he takes advantage of Leonard's condition for his own gain. He rents out multiple rooms to Leonard since he can't remember which room he is staying in.

Callum Keith Rennie plays Dodd. Natalie manipulates Leonard into tracking down Dodd. She accomplishes this by convincing Leonard that Dodd had beaten her. While Leonard is driving around in Jimmy's car, Dodd recognizes it and a chase results. Leonard eludes him and plans an ambush, which results in Dodd being forced to leave town under the threat of his own gun.

Jimmy is Natalie's drug dealing boyfriend, played by Larry Holden. Holden would work again with Christopher Nolan in both . Leonard is manipulated by Teddy into killing Jimmy near the chronological middle of the film. It is the photograph of Jimmy's dead which transitions from the first half of the scenes (the Black and White, which move forward) to the second half of the scenes (the color scenes, which are placed in reverse scene order).

In his review of the film, long-time film critic Roger Ebert mentioned that there is one key plot-point that he does not understand; if the last thing that Leonard remembers is his wife’s death, then how does he remember that he has short-term memory loss?

(Though it should be commented that this is common misconception about this condition. Some people with anterograde amnesia do know they have a problem. The classic case of HM describes how he is aware of it: [1] Or alternatively, Leonard does not problem in the sense he has to see a doctor or take drugs, as the end of the film admits, he literally wants to forget some things and remember some, which is the theme of the film. In other words, he does not remember of his wife as much as he wants to remember a mission of revenge, which didn't exist in the first place.)

After watching the film twice, Ebert came to the conclusion that we are intended to be left in a state of confusion. Ebert gave the film three out of four stars. [2]

William Arnold of the is a "delicious one-time treat". Arnold enjoyed how the film constantly makes the viewer re-examine the situation and strain to make mental links between the different scenes. Arnold also observed that Leonard's memory loss and tattoos could be a metaphor for the increasing number of passwords and number codes we are now expected to remember. [3]

s reviewer writes that Leonard is as much of a mystery to himself as he is to the audience. Whether or not the audience is willing to surrender to its fragmented, repetitive rhythms will determine whether or not they will find Christopher Nolan’s philosophical puzzle film enthralling or infuriating.

A.O. Scott of s noir feel and disorienting reverse chronology, calling it an "existential crossword puzzle". Scott writes that Nolan folds "straightforward events and simple motives into Möbius strips of paradox and indeterminacy". [4]

As of 2005, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) ranks at number twenty-two in its list of the top 250 films of all time. IMDb's rankings are based on ratings by Internet users.

The tattoo parlor is named after Christopher Nolan's wife and the film's associate producer, Emma Thomas. [7]A white Honda Civic can be seen parked next to Leonard Shelby's Jaguar at the motel; this is writer Christopher Nolan’s car. [8]Natalie's handwriting on the coaster that Lenny finds in his pocket changes from what it is just before Leonard enters Ferdy's Bar to what it is at the Tattoo Parlor. [9] was rejected by every major studio. As a result, Newmarket Films was left with no choice but to distribute the film themselves. It became a critical and box-office success.Disc two of the DVD Special Edition contains a hidden feature that allows the entire film to be viewed in chronological order, whereas the theatrical release (on disc one) has it in its original non-linear order.In the scene where you see Sammy ending up in the clinic, if you watch very closely you can see a hint to the eventual revelation at the 'end' of the movie. Near the end of the scene, someone walks past Sammy between him and the camera. As the person passes, just before the end of the scene, there is a very brief glimpse, in just two frames of film, of Leonard sitting in the chair in place of Sammy. Additional special features in the DVD version reveal that Leonard was placed in psychiatric care and kept journals to remind himself of information to remember. In one of his journals, he encouraged himself to "escape" from the institution.Near the end of the film, when there is a shot of Leonard and his wife in the bed, you can see the wife looking at a tattoo on Leonard. The tattoo reads "I've done it" - hinting perhaps that his wife never died, or that he has accomplished his quest to "find her killer." Another possible interpretation is that the scene is a daydream: his quest fulfilled and his wife alive. It is apparent that it is not a memory, since he does not now have the tattoo and we have clearly been shown that he has no scarring or any indication that the tattoo was removed. It also can not be the "future" since a future scene would be shown before the first scene in the movie.Plot Holes: Memento, a musing on how certain discrepancies might be plot holes or of more significance, on Slate