by Kevin Muller

From May to December, the Oscar race heats up with nominations becoming the main topic of conversation amongst film geeks. In recent years, the winner of the coveted Palm D’Ore, or Best Picture, at Cannes Film Festival, it will solidify a Best Picture nomination. In 2023, Peter Sarsgaard won the Best Actor prize at the Venice Film Festival, which made him the frontrunner to be nominated for an Oscar.   Unfortunately, by the time Oscar season came around, his win became a memory, no pun intended, in the minds of the academy. This isn’t the first time that a great performance has gotten overlooked. Plus, not only do we get to see his work, but the effort of Jessica Chastain. This was the first film, post her Oscar win, that she starred in. How good are they here? Was Sarsgaard robbed? Is the film any good?

In the film, Jessica Chastain plays Sylvia, a single mom who is a recovering addict. The film starts off at a meeting where she is celebrating a landmark. Her recovery can be seen as successful since she has a job, where she works as a caretaker for the mentally disabled. Despite her loving nature at work, she is withdrawn and cold outside of her job. While attending her high school reunion, she is followed home by a strange man named Saul, played by Sarsgaard, who she finds outside her apartment the next morning, bewildered on how he got there. Luckily, he has identification. Slyvia has a keen sense that they have met before under much darker circumstances but learns that she is mistaken. Saul’s daughter then asks Slyvia to take on a second job as Saul’s caretaker. Unfortunately, Saul wondering off isn’t surprising since he has dementia.  What starts out as a second source of income, quickly builds into a romance and discovery of who these two are as people.

Listen, with Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard, you know you are going to get two fantastic performances. As Slyvia, Chastain is reliably good. This is a woman with a shell around her that slowly starts to crack the deeper her and Saul fall for each other.   Slyvia is not only recovering from her alcohol dependence, but some deep-seated trauma that she hides throughout the film. It is this trauma that gave way to her alcoholism. In result, she possesses a prickly personality. The actress plays into the unlikable nature of who she is, and you feel ever so connected to her through this journey. While Sarsgaard is good, the performance is a decent one that strengthens the movie, but it feels like a role we’ve seen done many times before. Saul and Slyvia are broken people who find stability within one another. Sarsgaard plays confused and helpless well, but nothing about the performance jumps out from the screen.   

It is their romance that is heart of the film. It is frustrating, genuine, and real. It is the power of the film where it doesn’t try to tidy up the messiness of these two people.   The film falters when it doesn’t concentrate on Saul and Slyvia as much. Both of their family dynamics don’t measure up as well when compared to Chastain and Sarsgaard’s time on screen. There is plenty of drama to unpack with their loved ones, but it is approached in such a docile way. It isn’t that any of the other actors are bad, which consist of Josh Charles and Elsie Fisher, it is just that their narratives aren’t as memorable as the main two. Even though the film is a little over an hour and half, it does drag a bit due to its mundane nature.   

If you want to see two fine actors do their thing, see Memory. They say that a gifted actor can elevate any quality of material. Both Chastain and Sarsgaard are giving us quality work, with Chastain edging out Sarsgaard in terms of depth. This film should’ve been a home run, but you can’t help to feel that something big is missing.

I am giving Memory a 3 out of 5 Hairpieces!