It marked Christopher Nolan’s breakthrough to the big leagues
Our TV movie pick for this evening (Monday, 19 May) is Memento, the neo-noir psycho-thriller from Oscar-winning visionary Christopher Nolan.
Released 25 years ago, its non-linear story centers on Guy Pearce’s insurance investigator Leonard Shelby, who’s attempting to track down his wife’s killer while contending with anterograde amnesia (causing short-term memory loss).
Memento, which is based on Nolan’s brother Jonathan’s short story ‘Memento Mori’, also stars Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix), Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos) and Stephen Tobolowsky (Groundhog Day).
Nolan’s magisterial handling of the movie’s slipperiness would be repeated in his future work; Insomnia, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet being fellow mind-benders.
While we eagerly await his big-budget adaptation of The Odyssey, Memento is airing on TV tonight on Film4 at 11.35pm.
Here are the other movies on TV tonight:
Little Women – Film4 – 6.20pm
Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age period drama, featuring Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh and Timothée Chalamet, chronicles the lives of four sisters during the 19th century.
Mission: Impossible III – ITV4 – 9pm
Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt to capture an arms dealer portrayed by an electric Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Top Gun: Maverick – Film4 – 9pm
A sequel to the 1986 classic Top Gun, action-packed Maverick made over £1 billion at the box office.
Malcolm X – BBC Two – 11pm
The machine that is Denzel Washington plays real-life activist Malcolm X under the stylish guidance of Spike Lee.
The Hunt for Red October – More 4 – 11.05pm
Alec Baldwin is CIA intelligence analyst Jack Ryan in this submarine spy epic.
