Memento Analysis

Telling the story of two separate story arcs separated only by time; Memento follows Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator as he desperately searches for his wife’s killer. As one story moves forward, the other moves in reverse, revealing more about Leonard’s path to revenge. The only thing slowing Leonard down: his inability to form new memories. Centering the plot of the movie is Leonard Shelby, a white male from San Francisco with spiky blond hair and a chiseled, tattooed body. The tattoos aren’t just some form of art for personalization’s sake; Leonard has anterograde amnesia. He uses tattoos to help remind himself of so called ‘facts’ about his world that keep him in check with reality. Leonard wasn’t always this way however; once working

The cause was an assault, one that woke him from bed to find his wife being brutally raped and beaten in his bathroom. After shooting the assailant, he was beaten in the head by an unknown second intruder. This single incident would come to define the rest of Leonard’s life, leaving his brain constantly feeling like it had just woken from a deep slumber, unable to recollect what happened just moments earlier. The film leaves no doubt as to what Leonard’s illness may be. It is very clear that Leoanrd has anterograde amnesia, which was caused by being hit with a blunt object to the head during the intrusion. Leonard displays every hallmark of anterograde amnesia: inability to form new declarative memories, retained sense of self and all memories from before the assault, and retained procedural memory such as how to drive or talk on the phone. Leonard gives us a glimpse into the reality of his illness when he’s running from Dodd at one point in the

Although it is easy to understand the symptoms, the everyday difficulties such as asking yourself if you ate lunch, or whether your angry at someone but cant remember, are hard to identify with until watching Leonard’s story. By giving such a realistic look at Leonard’s difficulties, it is almost inescapable that the viewer feels compelled to feel sympathy for Leonard. By losing his wife and his memories, Leonard is an easy protagonist to empathize with and root for. Although this is all true for most of the movie, after the revelations by Teddy of what Leonard is actually doing (repeating the cycle mentioned earlier) it becomes harder to root for him. Just because Leonard is getting personal satisfaction each time he kills a person, he may be taking away a life that someone else will never get back. Although I sympathize with Leonard, it is incredibly difficult to be hopeful about his future path. His future seems dark, either leading to a continuous cycle of hunting and killing or ending up in jail for his previous