Final Rating: 3/5
Memory, directed by Michel Franco, is a melancholy musing on what it means to be alone, surrounded by people. Jessica Chastain plays Sylvia, a recovering alcoholic and social worker who lives with her daughter Anna (Brooke Timber). Sylvia is a very guarded, defensive character. She dresses in muted drab colors, and she sets the ever-present door alarm to her apartment each and every time throughout the movie like clockwork. We come to learn later that Sylvia was raped throughout her childhood and turned to alcohol. Hence her fearful vigilance with her daughter’s high school boyfriend.
Now in recovery, her life is a humdrum loop of work, school pickup, errands, setting the door alarm, rinse, repeat. The only socializing we see her do is when her sister Olivia (Merritt Wever) drags her to a high school reunion, where she sits idly with her water (remember no booze) and remains decidedly unsocial.
Enter Peter Sarsgaard’s Saul, one of the reunion goers who strangely follows her home silently, remaining outside her building and even sleeping in the rain overnight. As we come to find out, Saul has early onset dementia, and often forgets the present and recent past.
Some thoughtful camera work here: initially when we don’t know why this man is following Sylvia it’s shot like a thriller; we see him approaching her ominously from a distance, over Sylvia’s shoulder (2014’s It Follows would be proud). Only after we come to meet him and his harmless intentions do we then see him follow her from his perspective, shot now over his shoulder.
There’s a feeling of hollowness that pervades the film, first hinted at by the score. Or rather lack thereof. Right from the beginning titles there is no music in the movie at all. We are simply dropped in suddenly with no background accompaniment. The sound design stays largely vacant and ambient, often only providing a few birds chirping or the whiff of passing cars in the background.
Initially, when Sylvia mistakenly thinks Saul was one of her childhood rapists, she drops this bomb with no warning on Saul (and us) quite unceremoniously. It’s a heavy moment, and the first reveal to the audience of Sylvia’s past sexual abuse, delivered bluntly and with no build up. The news hits us like it hits Saul. The movie takes turns alternately putting us in the perspective of either character like this, which helps draw us in.
The quiet characters, still camera shots, and mumbled dialogue can almost give a Wes Anderson vibe at times, albeit with less color and less Jason Schwartzman. But this is less a stylistic choice and more a thematic one. The empty and largely quiet atmosphere of the film reflects the isolation of our two leads. Sylvia’s trauma and Saul’s dementia isolate them from the world around them, and their shared walled-off existence draws them to each other, eventually to a romance.
That journey, however, is a little clunky and arrives at hookup quite abruptly. There doesn’t seem to be any romantic chemistry between the two, and then all of a sudden they’re kissing. They seem simpatico as the movie telegraphs a warm platonic friendship developing, and then they start making out. It’s possible that maybe this happened too suddenly for the characters as well, but it plays more like a jarring tonal shift.
Once together they make a sweet couple, but the transition from acquaintances to lovers is more like a lightswitch flip than an organic arc. It’s credit to Sarsgaard’s charm that he can make us feel comfortable with a character initially introduced to us as a stalker and rapist. In the hands of a less likable actor, we’d be scared for Sylvia in this moment, in addition to a little befuddled.
Just how traumatized Slyvia is comes through in some excellent body language acting by Chastain in her and Saul’s love scene. It’s fully consensual, but all along the way Chastain alternates moments of willingness and hesitance in a subtle performance. Small moments of inclination and reluctance, lust and nerves surface in turn, punctuated with awkward chuckles. Thoughtful camera work again, the scene being captured in one long take that doesn’t flinch. Not that we’d need to, it’s not Caligula. But it’s admirable to keep the proceedings immediate and focused in one unbroken moment.
Remember earlier when I said there was no music in this movie whatsoever? That was almost true. There is in fact one single song played in the movie – Procol Harum’s 1967 one-hit-wonder “A Whiter Shade of Pale”. It’s Saul’s favorite song, and one he and Sylvia play a few times throughout the movie.
It’s a little puzzling exactly what director Michael Franco is trying to say with this. It could have something to do with the movie’s namesake, memory. For Saul, repeating the song might help trigger his. And it can’t hurt that his late wife liked the song, also a redhead like Sylvia.
We see Sylvia play it during her and Saul’s separation, so it may be a way for her withdrawn personality to connect. It seems to have something to do with their connection, but it’s muddled. It may just be that, or it may have something more going on, but it’s unclear.
What’s more interesting is the mirrored struggle with memory our two leads are grappling with. Saul is losing his, and gropes to remember. Sylvia is haunted by hers, and tries her best to move on. The warmth of the film, sorely needed in the muted color palette and empty soundscape, comes entirely from their opposite yet complementary relationships to their pasts. It gives a nice symmetry to the story.
All the performances are strong, with good supporting appearances from Merritt Wever as Sylvia’s sister Olivia and Jessica Harper as Sylvia’s abuse-denying mother Samantha. When the shit hits the fan, Harper is magnificent as Samantha tries to hold on to her shattered fantasy that nothing ever happened. She’s restrained but very potent at this moment.
There’s a nice tying up at the end too, with Saul and Sylvia reunited. When Saul shuffles tentatively towards her, Sylvia – who’s spent the movie on guard – ultimately reaches out first and they embrace. They meet halfway, and that’s what each of them need in order to remember.
Thank you StarPR and Mongrel Media for the screener.
