Memory

Director: Michel Franco
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Peter Sarsgaard, Merritt Wever, Brooke Timber, Josh Charles, Jessica Harper
Distributor: Potential Films
Runtime:  mins. Reviewed in Nov 2024
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Mature themes, coarse language, sexual references and graphic nudity.

Sylvia is a social worker who leads a simple and structured life. This is blown open when Saul follows her home from their high school reunion.

Memory is a powerful human gift – allowing the past to be re-lived. Some memories bring great happiness, some regrets and others sadness. But memories are elusive. They come. They go. They fade. And they can become entangled.

Here is a strong human drama where memory and its loss play an important role. We are introduced to Sylvia (the always reliable Chastain) at an AA group where she is being praised for 13 years of being clean and sober.

Sylvia is a single mother with her teenage daughter living at home. Sylvia works at a centre for the disabled. She has a bond with her younger sister. But she has a loathing and hatred for her mother. One night, she is rather unwillingly present at a high school reunion and a man comes and sits next to her, saying nothing. She leaves. He follows. He camps outside her house for the night.

In fact, he is Saul (Sarsgaard), who wins best actor award for this performance and the 2024 Venice film Festival. He suffers from incipient dementia which is gradually taking over.

While the film shows us the growing rapport between Sylvia and Saul, we discover more about their memories and his loss of memory. Saul is cared for by his strict and protective brother, Isaac (Charles), who realises that Saul can depend on Sylvia and employs her as Saul’s carer. A positive part of the bonding with Saul is Sylvia’s daughter and her support of him, a burgeoning friendship.

But Sylvia had remembered something about Saul – an assault in high school days. However, this proves to be a false memory when the timing is out. We see Sylvia going back into her memories, especially of her relationship with her father, and the animosity towards her mother (Harper) who is wanting to bond with her granddaughter while still clashing with Sylvia.

There is some intensity in this exploration of memories – false and suppressed, or characters who are unwilling to remember.

But, in exploring human nature, Mexican writer-director Franco, offers an option for hope, for good relationships, and for some healing of memories even if, for Saul, they continue to recede.