Directed by Michel Franco, Memory is a searing film that gives insight into two souls dealing with the aftermath of trauma. At the film’s start, we first encounter Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) at an AA meeting. She has been a recovering alcoholic for thirteen years and is bringing her daughter to the meeting for the first time. At the meeting, Sylvia listens to a multitude of stories from people in recovery.
Shortly after, she attends a high school reunion with her sister, Olivia (Merritt Weaver). Feeling uncomfortable and wanting to go home, Sylvia heads for the elevated train, where she is followed by Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), who then spends the night outside her home. The following day, Sylvia phones her support sponsor to pick Paul up. A few days later, the unlikely pair make contact, and it appears that Saul does not remember following Sylvia home due to his short-term memory problems relating to addiction. Saul requires day-to-day care while his brother and family work, and Sylvia is a nurse at an adult daycare facility; Saul’s family asks her to look after him. As time passes, a kinship between the two blossoms into an intimate relationship. Due to being abused by her father at a young age, Sylvia has long felt unsafe around men and resents her mother for supporting her father’s behavior. This family dysfunction is one of the reasons for Sylvia’s alcoholism.
Therein lies part of the problem with Memory. While the film has two stellar lead performances from an outstanding Sarsgaard and the consistently excellent Chastain, who elicits the right level of vulnerability, it does not hold your attention regarding its low-key production design and overall bleak cinematography. For instance, during a climactic scene where Sylvia’s mum – the frightening Jessica Harper – and her family confront her in Olivia’s home, the scene is blocked quite awkwardly with her mother’s back to the camera, like a confrontation in a theatre production. It feels like the scene was shot hastily and without much care. In better hands, perhaps the fractured, haphazard approach would be reflective of the breakage of relationships among the lead characters, but this is not the case in Franco’s film.
While Memory is set in New York City, the milieu and mise-en-scene displayed are very middle of the road and grey in tone; from the costumes of the characters to the nondescript homes that they live in, the film feels almost general – apart from key points like the elevated train as a signifier of location – which is perhaps part of the film’s intention in universalizing the story of addiction. To its credit, however, Memory sincerely portrays the consequences of addiction on family units, as well as how sexual assault survivors are often disbelieved. Memory also moves along at a glacial pace; only a brief explosion of action or sound – in this case, a hum of Procol Harem’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ for the second or third time – jolts the viewer back to regain their attention. The slow build of deep underlying emotion never quite comes to the surface. Instead, the part of our lead and then are brought back together by the film’s conclusion for an embrace that ends with that song again. All in all, Memory is a film that has big intentions but is ultimately subdued in its dull execution. Despite the brilliant dual lead performances, the film’s overall muted conclusion leaves more to be desired.
