Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard star in director Michel Franco’s drama.
Beautiful, nuanced, and graceful performances are showcased in Memory, directed by Michel Franco. Feeling like a stage play that has been transferred to the cinematic screen, Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard inhabit their characters with an intensity that is, frankly, frightening.
They bob and weave around the strengths and weaknesses of Sylvia and Saul, badly damaged people who are living their lives as best they can in modern Manhattan, despite the grievous injuries they have suffered in the past. The suffering is entirely internal, yet externally discernible due to their conduct and the pattern of their activities.
They are continually hunched over in defensive postures, ready to run or defend themselves at the slightest hint of perceived trouble, despite their hobbled nature. They are two souls who are clearly in conflict with themselves and their own self-castigating doubts. To casual observers, they might seem a bit odd, even peculiar in their behavior. To those who know them or are familiar with signs of emotional distress, however, they are in danger, walking a tightrope over deep, open pits of despair.
As director, Michel Franco captures the anxious tone of Sylvia, Saul, and their respective family members, which include Brooke Timber as Sylvia’s teenage daughter, Anna; Merritt Wever as Sylvia’s younger (married) sister, Olivia; Jessica Harper as Sylvia’s mother, Samatha; and Josh Charles as Isaac, Saul’s brother. Each performance is filled with warmth and/or wariness; each performance captures tones that are difficult to write on paper.
That’s where the biggest challenge to the film comes from, though. Michel Franco’s dialogue is superbly written, crafted for maximum dramatic effect, and performed by the cast with the utmost care and concern for authenticity. The narrative, however, works against that, feeling inauthentic and contrived to drum up dramatic conflict.
It feels manipulative, for example, for Franco to have Sylvia mistake Saul for one of the young men who sexually abused her when she was just 12 years old. By that point, Sylvia has been informed that Saul suffers from early dementia, and says meekly that he can’t recall any such thing. He can only sit helpless as Sylvia unleashes decades of pent-up anguish and anger at him. The viewer is impelled to sympathize with her, and direct similar outrage at an abuser who claims to have no memory of such a horrible crime.
Just a few scenes later, Sylvia is informed by her sister Olivia that it could not possibly have been Saul who abused her, since his family didn’t live in the area until sometime after the abuse. Oh, okay. (Three second pause.) Sylvia decides to accept an offer from Saul’s family to become his daytime caregiver.
What?
Other narrative turns similarly appear intended to misdirect or mislead the sympathies of the viewer, to make one question one’s own assumptions about the profound influence that past memories can have upon present behavior or future actions. Really, though, it seems that Michel Franco is more intent on provoking strong emotions than in creating characters who register as true, human, and believable.
The film is now playing in New York and Los Angeles, only in theaters. It expands Friday, January 5, 2024, in Dallas, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. For theaters and showtimes, visit the official site.
Dallas Film Now. 