Memory (2024)

There's been a few dramas in recent years dealing with the issue of dementia, most notably 2021's Oscar winning The Father. While Florian Zeller's hard hitting tale focused on the effects and devastation dementia causes, Michel Franco's Memory takes an altogether different approach, weaving a central story around subjects of addiction and abuse- a tale that just happens to have someone with early onset dementia playing a key role.

Jessica Chastain is Sylvia, a care and social worker who we see in the opening scenes attending an AA meeting; for the first half of the film the undercurrents of these meetings is left to the audience to ponder until it's unleashed in fairly shocking fashion. She lives with her daughter and is on good terms with her sister Olivia, who it appears has been helping out as Sylvia continues to get her life back on track. The pair of sisters attend a school reunion which Sylvia leaves early- the chore of socialising still too much to deal with for someone whose sole focus is her daughter and the people she cares for post sobriety.

She is followed home by Saul (a brilliant Peter Sarsgaard) who then waits outside her flat all night until the next morning, when she finds him curled up amongst some tires wrapped in a bin bag. It's clear something's amiss, and it's no surprise when we're told Saul has early onset dementia and is cared for by his brother Isaac and his younger sister.

Sylvia agrees to take on a role as carer for Saul in his home whilst Isaac is at work, and the two of them form a strong bond, with Saul frequently making jokes about his own condition; one particular scene in which the pair of them watch a film together is particularly affecting.

Franco is keen to create a positive spin without making light of what a hideous thing dementia is, and he performs this trick quite magnificently. He's helped by a wonderful central pairing in Chastain and Sarsgaard who pull you into their slowly burgeoning relationship with real happiness- cautious happiness initially from Sylvia (especially when you consider their first day together-I'll say no more here) and hopefulness from Saul as he deals with the everyday problems of being badly hampered.

There's no getting away from the fact that Memory is dealing with dementia in its early form with Saul; but this does nothing to belittle the power of the feelings on show. Franco's film, despite several truly horrific moments, is one that primarily deals with hope, and in lesser hands this imprinted idea could have been accused of making light of a serious illness. Instead, the film had me in pieces by its finale, but not for the reasons I would have envisaged. 8.1/10