Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Memory’ on Paramount+, a Hefty Drama Boasting Terrific Performances by Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard

Not to be confused with the somewhat recent Liam Neeson action film of the same name, Memory (now streaming on Paramount+) unites one of the cinema’s more quietly incendiary directors with two of the more underrated actors of their generation. Granted, winning an Oscar in 2022 for playing Tammy Faye Bakker doesn’t quite make one underrated, but I nevertheless insist it’s true for Jessica Chastain, whose presence routinely improves the movie’s she’s in – and you can heap the same praise upon her co-star Peter Sarsgaard (whose range brings to mind Philip Seymour Hoffman, a hands-down all-timer). Here, they work under Mexican writer/director Michel Franco, who’s never one to shy away from intense drama, and it’s pretty much a perfect fit. 

MEMORY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Sylvia’s (Chastain) refrigerator is broken, and it’s perhaps telling that she specifically requested a repairwoman instead of a repairman. (It’s also perhaps telling that when a man comes instead of a woman, she sighs and lets him in anyway, and the repair occurs without incident.) It’s hard to tell if she’s happy, but she’s getting by: A single mom to teenager Anna (Brooke Timber). Works at an adult day care center. An alcoholic who’s been sober for many years. She’s tough, a survivor, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t tenuous, maybe a bit fragile. She lives in a so-so neighborhood in New York, and needs to borrow money from her sister Olivia (Merritt Wever) to make an end or two meet. 

You get the sense that Sylvia isn’t particularly comfortable in social situations, a sense that’s affirmed when Olivia strongarms her into attending a high school class reunion. The host toasts to the class of whatever year it was, and Sylvia sits quietly and awkwardly with her glass of water as everyone else raises their wine glasses. She stays in her seat and stares into the middle distance as everyone else dances. Then, Saul (Sarsgaard) sits next to her and smiles. She says nothing. Stands up. Walks out. Saul follows at a distance, but not so far that she won’t notice him. She gets on the train, and so does he. She gets off, and so does he. She walks to her apartment and quickly locks the door behind her and goes upstairs and pulls the curtains shut. He stands outside. A rainstorm erupts, and he stays on the sidewalk. He’s still outside the next morning, sitting, covered in trash bags, looking confused, disturbed and disturbing. 

Saul was with Isaac (Josh Charles) at the party. Sylvia calls Isaac to retrieve him. We follow Saul for a scene or two, as he goes home with his brother. Some time later, Isaac invites her over so she stops by. Saul has dementia, she’s told. He remembers things from many years ago, but struggles with things that happened a day or two, or even a minute, ago. Sylvia and Saul go for a walk in the park and sit on a log and she confronts him: Does he remember the time when she was 12 and he and some others got her drunk and sexually assaulted her? He doesn’t. She accuses him of conveniently “forgetting” and takes his emergency contact lanyard and leaves him there alone on the log. Then she feels a pang of guilt and goes back and finds him and gives him back the lanyard. She struggles for a bit. Trauma does that to a person. Soon thereafter, Olivia tells Sylvia that she was wrong. Saul didn’t transfer to their school until after the assault. He wasn’t there. She misremembered. It seems trauma does that to a person, too.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Memory is on the same searingly melodramatic wavelength as Franco’s previous film, 2022’s Sundown (but is markedly different from the terrifying, and far less subtle, speculative fiction of 2020’s New Order). 

Performance Worth Watching: Franco’s heavyweight screenplay puts the onus on Chastain and Sarsgaard, who give this thorny drama and its troubled characters the understated ferocity and emotional accountability it deserves.

Memorable Dialogue: Sylvia meets with Saul after the following incident, but before her accusation:

Saul: I’m sorry I made you feel uncomfortable the other night.

Sylvia: It’s fine.

Sayl: It’s not fine.

Sex and Skin: Topless Chastain in a bathtub makeout session; incidental frontal Sarsgaard.

Our Take: Memory is a story about incredibly vulnerable people who bear significant burdens, and may find some lightness within each other. It’s not surprising to see Saul and Sylvia overcome the initial awkwardness of their meeting and, once she accepts a second job as his caretaker, pursue a relationship of some intimacy; what’s surprising is the optimism that lurks in the margins of the narrative, unusual for a Michel Franco film. Which isn’t to say the director has compromised his razorlike sensibilities – this film is full of unflinching, long-take dialogue sequences that land heavy dramatic blows. But these characters, rendered complex and empathetic by Chastain and Sarsgaard, endure, and for that you’ll be grateful.

And yet. The story unfolds on a faultline, especially concerning the Saul character, who’s presented to us with a distinct can’t-quite-draw-a-bead-on-this-guy Sarsgaardian quality that shifts from Creep Mode to one of heartbreaking empathy as we get to know him. We don’t know exactly what Saul comprehends on a moment-by-moment basis, including possibly who Sylvia is; take the earlier scene where Sylvia examines a photo of his late wife, who bears a more-than-passing resemblance. Saul is a character who must live with his vulnerabilities always and forever at the surface, the psychological yin to Sylvia’s yang. She does her damnedest to keep her own crippling vulnerabilities at bay, a dynamic that comes into play with her daughter, who fights her mother’s instinct to be overprotective, and the introduction of Sylvia’s estranged mother Samantha (Jessica Harper), who’s been gaslighting her daughter for decades, exacerbating her trauma.

Considering the circumstances, one wonders if Saul and Sylvia will ever truly connect. Is it OK if they don’t? I think so. There’s great value in any connection; they seem to understand each other to a significant degree; compromise is inevitable in any relationship. Franco uses their unusual, not-traditionally-romantic romance as a home base to explore dramatic tension, and we watch as he deflates one conflict only to inflate the next. That’s just life, right? You move on from the stresses of one situation for the inevitable stresses of the next. You might not feel alive without it, and Franco, again perhaps surprisingly, makes us feel a little better about Saul and Sylvia, that their friendship and lives aren’t hopeless. 

Our Call: Memory is weighty and intense and therefore not an easy watch, but its thematic richness and fully committed performances render it a more-than-worthy adult drama. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.