by Julian Wood
Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Jessica Chastain, Peter Sarsgaard, Merritt Wever, Josh Charles, Elsie Fisher, Jessica Harper, Brooke Timber
Intro:
The film demands a certain patience but, if you meet it halfway, it is both human and moving.
Singer/songwriter Paul Simon once wrote, “Preserve your memories; They’re all that’s left you”. He was musing (even then) upon how old age might take away so much from us, but our memories remain. And, what’s more, those memories are priceless in that they anchor our ongoing sense of self. Without them, we become increasingly unsure and could even start to fade away.
This is very much the throughline in this affecting little drama from Mexican director Michel Franco. A few years ago, he made Sunshine with Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsborough, which also dealt with how people can feel that the things that really mater are elusive and not guaranteed.
In Memory, the lead character is a young middle aged woman called Sylvia (Jessica Chastain), who has become more or less estranged from her birth family, partly because she keeps making wild accusations which they cannot believe, and which in themselves are poisoning the family relations.
When she is followed home from a therapy group by a strange man who claims to know her from the past, she is initially very suspicious. He is Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), who may be suffering from mental illness or something else. Perhaps his vagueness is compounded by the fact that he probably has early onset dementia. Like her, he is more or less estranged from his long-suffering family, though they have enough interest in him to keep a close eye on who he consorts with.
Franco makes bold artistic choices in terms of where he takes their relationship, which you either go with or you don’t. What is undeniable is the committed nature of the performances. The lack of any stylisation also gives the film its very un-Hollywood feel. Chastain plays it without a trace of make-up and Sarsgaard spends most of the time being aphasic and shuffling around in an old dressing gown, not doing very much. All this could have tipped over into being too ‘method’, but there is integrity in both the script and the actors’ approaches, which gives the film a chance to land its slow burn seriousness.
Chastain has been in this mode before (think of her gutsy performance in the Bergman-inspired TV series Scenes from a Marriage), and she is clearly keen to extend her range beyond lightweight or glamourous roles. This performance will get her further notice. The film demands a certain patience but, if you meet it halfway, it is both human and moving.
