It’s hard to encapsulate the cinema of a particular filmmaker in just one word, but if one were to try their hand at it with Mexican maverick Michel Franco, a word that’d come to mind is violence. The filmmaker’s work is built upon the looming expectation of violent transgression, society standing flimsy atop the fragile idea of cordiality. Such benevolence, sustained by the centuries-old notion of polite society, is easier to break within the intimate confines of the family home, a sentiment Franco explores to the very limits of shock and emotional obliteration within his body of work.
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In “Memory,” Franco once again prods at the threats that permeate a family unit. His third English-language feature is entirely set in New York, where social worker Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) splits her days between caring for intellectually disabled adults, attending regular AA meetings, and rigorously controlling the whereabouts of her 13-year-old daughter, Anna (Brooke Timber). The structured routine Sylvia relied on for over a decade cracks one night when she agrees to attend her high school reunion alongside her younger sister Olivia (Merritt Wever). The unusual outing becomes even more unusual when Sylvia is followed home by a man she briefly shunned at the gathering, a very disheveled, very suspicious Saul (Peter Saarsgard).
“Memory” takes its name from the inescapable dichotomy between the pain of being unable to remember and that of being unable to forget. While Saul struggles with a recent diagnosis of dementia, Sylvia lives a life of dread — her front door is bolted to the nines and equipped with a state-of-the-art security system that comically stands out amongst the muted insides of the shabby apartment; she times her break to match those of her daughter, unenthusiastically munching at a dry sandwich while keeping a watchful eye over an increasingly peeved Anna. The caretaker shows little desire to engage with anyone outside her small circle, preferring to watch the ever-ticking clock that inches her daughter near to independence while pushing her closer to the terrifying enclosure of self-imposed solitude.
As this is a Franco affair, the imminent threat of violence permeates the relationship between Sylvia and Saul. The man enters the social worker’s life as a dangerous reminder of her defencelessness but grows to become a welcome — soothing, even — presence. As old habits die hard, the match unravels not as Romeo and Juliet but something odder, clunkier. The uneasiness of their courtship and the truths it reveals about Sylvia’s past make the first half of “Memory” a gripping suspense. Yet Franco proves less interested in unspooling the twists he teases early on and much more concerned with the suggestion, the couple at the center of this slow burner prancing around one another without ever plummeting into the sort of twisted rabbit hole the Mexican director is so used to digging.
While Chastain conveys emotional frigidness through a perpetual pout and broken glances interrupted only by the cutting wails of paralyzing depression, Sarsgaard finds brief moments of tenderness within the overbearing grief of Saul’s condition. The man’s large hands hungrily grasp at hair and skin, a frenzied need for savoring every drip of the present fuelled by a gutwrenching awareness of the cruel swamp of obsolescence ready to engulf it all. The two veteran actors share a lukewarm chemistry but settle into a competent balance between the diametrically opposed nature of their characters. Alas, as sharp as the duo might be, they cannot fight the moroseness that sets into the film’s latter half.
This somberness feels unusual for the director, and those who have seen the shocking lengths threaded by Franco in recent works such as “New Order” (2020) and “Sundown” (2021) will find themselves stunted by the open nature of the film’s muted conclusion. Denied the clarity of a characteristically disturbing reveal, it is up to the viewer to dissect pointed words and suggestive framing, a fruitful exercise in theory but painstakingly stunted in practice. The result leaves a bitter ick in its treatment of trauma and trust, this refusal to further prod on questions of culpability and the structures that canoodle and protect abusers neatly packaged as ambiguous but failing to mask the nagging taste of non-committal futility. [C]
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