Memory * * * *

Do you remember when... meh, don't worry about it....

This remarkable drama is from Mexican writer/director Michel Franco.  He is the film maker who gave us Sundown.  Like that film, this too is in English.

I've never seen Jessica Chastain give a bad performance and she is quite remarkable in this film too, along with her co-star Peter Sarsgaard.

Like Sundown nothing is explained to us in Memory. We have to put together the pieces as we watch the principal characters behave in an extraordinary and perplexing manner.

Saul (Sarsgaard) has been diagnosed as having a mental condition, whilst Sylvia (Chastain) believes she is okay.  But her memory has been twisted by something in her past.  Meanwhile, her mother and sister deny all memory of what happened to her.

Sylvia refuses to have anything to do with her mother, in fact she will openly state "I hate her". 

Sylvia is a single mother who has been cruelly damaged by her own past, consequently she is highly protective of her adolescent daughter. 

At the beginning it is clear that Saul is the most damaged of these two unfortunate people, but as the story progresses, we see things very differently.

Memory demands our patience, especially in the early stages,  but the rewards are rich.  It's a moving and beautifully constructed film set in New York with virtually no iconic images of that city. In this film you don't need them.