He can’t remember, she can’t forget: Peter Sarsgaard and Jessica Chastain in Memory. Photo / supplied
He can’t remember, she can’t forget: Peter Sarsgaard and Jessica Chastain in Memory. Photo / supplied
A one-liner to describe Memory might be “he can’t remember but she can’t forget” – but the ideas in this well-written, award-winning indie film are much more intricate.
It concerns social worker Sylvia (Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain), a recovering alcoholic and overprotective single mum, who encounters a man from her childhoodat a school reunion. When he wordlessly follows her home and hunkers down to sleep on the street outside, it transpires that Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) has no idea why he has done so because he has early onset dementia.
But Sylvia recognises Saul from a traumatic incident in her past, and as the two develop a tentative bond, it is soon clear that no one’s recollections are entirely infallible.
Sarsgaard (An Education) won the Best Actor prize at Venice for his nuanced performance as a gentle, guileless adult stripped of agency by his cautious brother (Josh Charles) and reliant entirely on the companionship of carers.
The always excellent Chastain matches Sarsgaard in intensity and a grounded naturalism, and the pair elevate a story that could easily have slipped into melodrama and cliché (there’s a small narrative convenience in that Sylvia’s day job is working with disabled adults), but steers clear – just.
Mexican writer-director Michel Franco (Sundown, Chronic) is drawn to telling stories about dysfunctional families, and the most devastating thing about Memory turns out not to be what happens here, but how the characters deal with what has happened. As Sylvia’s uptight, waspish mother, Jessica Harper (star of the 1977 horror Suspiria) is a horrifically realistic and all-too-familiar familial villain – estranged from her daughter due to her incapacity to accept or believe Sylvia’s account of traumas past, but intent on weaselling her way into a relationship with her granddaughter.
Franco adopts a subtle method of cinematic storytelling, too, by leaving the camera still for long takes of true-to-life acting, and dropping little clues throughout the script rather than resorting to big show-and-tells. It all makes for an intriguing, twisty and ultimately unexpected drama that prompts us to consider our own assumptions, biases and how we make peace with our past.
