Memory
When a movie begins in an AA meeting, you know you’re about to meet some seriously damaged characters. In Memory, by Mexican director, Michel Franco, the first of them is Jessica Chastain’s Sylvia, a middle-aged single mother who has been dry for the past 13 years, ever since her daughter was born. That daughter, Anna (Brooke Timber), is present at this meeting, supporting her mother.
On the face of it, Sylvia doesn’t seem to need the kid gloves treatment. She’s not a shuddering wreck, but an attractive, fresh-faced woman. She comes across as strong and focussed, not the sort who will suffer a relapse into alcoholism. In her day job she works as an assistant at a home for mentally disabled people, where she is kind and patient with the inmates. As the story progresses, the cracks and complexities in Sylvia’s personality will gradually begin to appear.
Sylvia and Anna’s apartment in a down-at-heel part of Brooklyn is a fortress against the world, with an alarm and multiple locks. She reacts with a nervous jolt when a repairman turns up, after she had specifically asked for a repairwoman. She cleans and tidies obsessively, rummaging around in her daughter’s room. One of her greatest fears is the prospect of Anna having a boyfriend, or anything to do with boys. Clearly there’s a problem where men are concerned.
This anxiety rises to the surface when Sylvia’s sister, Olivia (Merritt Wever), convinces her to come along to a high school reunion. While everyone else is drinking, dancing and flirting, Sylvia sits alone and sober, feeling alienated from the group. Her unease turns to disgust when a bearded man sits down alongside her and turns on a gormless smile. Sylvia’s reaction is to get up and leave the party, but her new admirer follows her onto the subway, and even to the door of her apartment, never saying a word. When she looks out of her window he is standing in the street, in the rain. The next morning she finds him lying in a sodden heap at her door.
At this point, she becomes the nurse again and realises that something’s wrong. The stranger (Peter Sarsgaard) is named Saul Shapiro and he suffers from a type of dementia that lets him to remember the distant past while forgetting much of the present. He’s also subject to blackouts, which leave him in a state of confusion. When Saul is collected by his brother, Isaac (Josh Charles), Sylvia begins to think she remembers him. She goes for a walk in the park with Saul, where she comes up with some shocking allegations. His habitual reply is: “I don’t remember.”
She thinks that’s the last she’ll see of Saul, but his niece, Sarah (Elsie Fisher) comes to ask if Sylvia would like to earn some extra money looking after her uncle during the day. And so, Sylvia becomes Saul’s carer, and a strange relationship develops.
Saul’s memory is in fragments, seemingly held together by constant replays of Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale, a song that holds some deep meaning for him that can’t be articulated or explained. This may not be a sure sign of dementia, because nobody has ever been able to explain the lyrics of this song. Emotionally, he appears blank-faced, but is really a bundle of inchoate feelings, the foremost being his attraction to Sylvia.
It's Sylvia’s memory that presents the most pressing problems. She realises she has falsely accused Saul of historical offences for which he is innocent, but there’s no doubt - in textbook Freudian fashion – that all her problems date back to childhood. One of the legacies of her ‘wild’ youth is that she no longer speaks to her mother, Stephanie (Jessica Harper), having kept her at arm’s length since before Anna was born.
The mysteries of Sylvia’s mind become our major preoccupation. We can’t tell is she is a reliable narrator, or whether she has constructed an elaborate, savage fantasy that has destroyed her relationships with her mother, and with men. Some directors would enjoy leaving us in suspense, unable to decide what is true and what is false. Franco does not succumb to this arty temptation, bringing everything to a head in a tense, confronting scene in which all is revealed.
One of the most impressive features of this film is its air of restraint. Chastain and Sarsgaard are both playing outsiders, defined as much by what they don’t say and do, as by any positive actions. The acting is complemented by the camera work, which keeps a respectful distance, never letting us feel we are intimately familiar with the characters’ thoughts.
Although it seems unlikely that Sylvia could fall for a man whose mind is failing badly, Saul is perhaps the perfect person to break down her defences. We have already seen, in her compassionate treatment of the inmates in the mental home, that she is more relaxed with people who are unconditionally broken. Saul fits the bill, being largely helpless, drawn to her by instinct rather than calculation. They are two lonely hearts, trying to cope with the traumas of the past and present.
I was reminded of a line from E.O. Chirovici’s novel, Bad Blood, where a psychiatrist says: “Our consciousness operates like a director, cutting scenes from his film however he pleases and weaving bits together to give them a certain meaning and significance. We don’t actually record facts, but meanings and emotions, which differ from one individual to the next.”
It's a slightly crude explanation of how memory works, but it fits in with Franco’s portrayal of Sylvia and Saul’s dilemmas. Within our minds we constantly rearrange the facts of experience to align with our emotional experiences, both good and bad. To dwell on the bad is a recipe for trauma, as each new experience provides emotional reinforcement for past horrors. Indeed, it may be only through ‘active forgetting’ that we are able to take part in everyday life, free from those associations that conjure up painful stigmas. When dealing with the darkest recesses of the mind, there are no magical fixes, only bandaid solutions for keeping the demons at bay.
Memory
Written & directed by Michel Franco
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Peter Sarsgaard, Brooke Timber, Merrit Wever, Josh Charles, Elsie Fisher, Tom Hammond, Jessica Harper, Jackson Dorfman, Blake Baumgartner
Mexico/USA, MA15+, 103 mins