Memory: Movie Review

Cast: Jessica Chastain, Peter Sarsgaard, Josh Charles

Director: Michel Franco

There's a complexity to director Michel Franco's Memory, a film which addresses some darker themes in a sensitive and moving manner.

Oscar winner Chastain plays Sylvia, a single mother recovering from alcoholism and estranged from her own mother. Navigating a complicated relationship between the two of them, Sylvia's sister Celia persuades her to come to a reunion, despite her protestations.

On leaving the party, she's followed home by a man, Saul, (Sarsgaard) who ends up spending the night outside her house....

To say more about Memory's plot is to rob it of some of its elements of surprise and its seismic revelations.

Needless to say it is impeccably acted by both Sarsgaard and Chastain, a pair whose chemistry is palpable but also whose lived-in experiences feel raw, real yet grounded throughout.

As elements of the story reveal themselves like an onion, there's a temptation to overplay the dramatic edges but director Michel Franco wisely holds back from over-egging elements and pushing it into the melodrama.

It's a decision that pays off handsomely as Memory with its twists and subtle edges plays out. By keeping a close rein on proceedings and a tight eye on the histrionics of the drama, Memory does much to stay long in the memory after the lights have gone up.

Memory: Movie Review

Cast: Liam Neeson, Guy Pearce, Monica Bellucci
Director: Martin Campbell

A turgidly dull movie, Memory is the kind of film that makes anyone with any credibility feel like Liam Neeson is killing off his career with a string of utter duds.

In this lamentable "thriller", which draws from the Neeson sub-genre of a hitman who has a special set of skills, Neeson is hitman Alex Lewis, whose latest job should be his last. But when he finds out the case in El Paso involves child abuse, he goes rogue.

Deciding to take revenge on those involved, Lewis' path crosses with FBI Child Exploitation Task Force Agent Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce) who's been working on the case for nearly a year. But as Lewis' memory starts to fade, is he going to be able to complete the job in time?

Kiwi director Martin Campbell has been renowned for good work before (chiefly Goldeneye and Casino Royale), but here, it's the material which is less than ideal and the execution of it which becomes more and more tedious as the film goes on.

You'll wish your memory was failing you in parts of this film, but in truth, most of it consists of either sequences you've seen plenty of times before, or action that's without any kind of suspense and feels like it exists solely to protect a ticklist of requirements.

Neeson doesn't help things much here either. Whether it's The Ice Road, Honest Thief, The Marksmen, he's done all this before - and the more he mines this kind of role, the more you feel he's not even bothering to phone it in.

Memory is an awful film - it's the absolute dregs of streaming in many ways - it exists solely to fulfill contractual obligations and is despicably dull and interminably plodding throughout.

Memory is streaming on Prime Video from October 7.