Michel Franco’s Memory is one of those movies that has a lot of great ideas but never brings them together in a satisfying way. The conceit is the coming together of one person who’s losing his memory of the past, and another who wishes she could forget. Out late last year for an awards qualifying run, Memory goes wider this week; it’s not to be confused with the recent Liam Neeson action movie of the same name.
Jessica Chastain stars in the Brooklyn-set film as Sylvia, a single mother of a teenager who works as a social worker in an adult daycare center and is a recovering alcoholic. The reasons for her trauma, resulting in alcoholism and general fear of the world around her are slowly laid out throughout the film. Early on, at her high school reunion, she meets Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), a man who suffers from early-onset dementia. Saul begins following her around, and his brother (Josh Charles), somewhat inexplicably, hires her as his caregiver.
At this point, the film hints at something fascinating, involving something bad Saul may have done to Sylvia in the distant past. The idea of this, that he doesn’t remember it, and what it means for their relationship, is probably the most promising aspect of the picture. But then, the film drops it almost immediately and is never nearly as interesting ever again.
Instead, the two embark on a relatively conventional relationship, against the wishes of their families. Meanwhile, long-buried secrets are revealed, involving Sylvia’s callous and uncaring mother (a terrifying Jessica Harper). The performances are all very good, with Chastain not trying nearly as ostentatiously to win an Oscar as in The Eyes of Tammy Faye a couple of years back. She’s also wearing little-to-no makeup after she was slathered in it for the entirety of the Tammy Faye movie. Sarsgaard, to his credit, never gets showy the way so many actors playing characters with disabilities often do. The supporting parts are all well-played, especially Harper, the always-welcome Merritt Wever as Sylvia’s sister, and newcomer Brooke Timber as her teenage daughter.
But one thing that kept me from enjoying those performances was that it was hard to see them. I can’t remember when I’ve hated the lighting of a movie more, as Franco opts for an ugly, washed-out visual style in which characters, and their faces, keep disappearing into the darkness. I almost forgot Wever was even in the movie because I could barely see her face.
Franco is the Mexican director of films like After Lucia and New Order, who back in 2021 made a terrific English-language film called Sundown, with Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Memory lands in the middle of the pack of the director’s efforts, although it does make great use of Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” as a recurring musical motif.