Memento Ending Explained
Memento is a 2000 film directed by Christopher Nolan that follows Leonard Shelby, played by Guy Pearce. Leonard has short-term memory loss after an attack that also killed his wife. He tattoos clues on his body and takes Polaroids to hunt the man he calls John G, the attacker. The movie tells its story in a tricky way. It splits into color scenes that run backward and black-and-white scenes that run forward. These two parts meet in the middle, which is really the start of the main events.
As the color scenes reverse from the end to the beginning, we see Leonard meet people like Natalie and Teddy. Natalie helps him at first but then uses his condition to her advantage. Teddy seems like a friend who guides Leonard on his quest. In one key scene at a bar, Natalie insults Leonard about his dead wife, knowing he will forget it soon after. This shows how easy it is to trick him.
The black-and-white parts show Leonard in a motel talking to someone on the phone. He shares the story of Sammy Jankis, a man with the same memory problem. Sammy accidentally killed his diabetic wife by giving her too much insulin because she tested if his memory loss was real. Leonard says this is not him, but it hints at deeper truths.
The big reveal happens when the timelines connect. Teddy, whose real name is John Gamsby, tells Leonard the full story. Leonard did kill the real attacker long ago. It was a junkie who raped his wife but did not kill her. His wife survived the attack at first. But she died later from an insulin overdose, just like Sammy’s wife. Leonard has turned Sammy’s story into his own to cope. He has anterograde amnesia, meaning he cannot form new memories, but Sammy had a different issue.
Teddy says Leonard needs a reason to live, so he keeps feeding him new targets. Every few months, they kill a random John G, and Leonard starts over, forgetting it all. Teddy shows photos of past kills to prove it. But Leonard rejects this. He decides his wife was killed, not just raped. To keep his mission going, he writes Teddy’s license plate on his photo as the next John G. This sets up him killing Teddy in what we saw at the start of the color scenes.
In the end, Leonard tricks his future self on purpose. He knows he will forget, so he creates a lie to chase forever. The last shot, which is first in story time, shows him driving off to kill Teddy, thinking it is justice. But we know it is just another loop. This makes the movie about how we all pick truths that help us go on, even if they are not real. Leonard says, “I have to believe in a world outside my own mind.” Teddy replies, “You don’t want the truth. You make up your own truth.”
The film’s structure matches Leonard’s mind. Watching it forward once helps it all click. There are no post-credits scenes. The story ends with that uneasy feeling about memory and revenge.
Sources
https://spoilertown.com/memento-2000/
https://collider.com/great-mystery-movie-twists-remain-untouchable/
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/movie-twists-best-films-all-time-b2887657.html
https://www.cbr.com/psychological-thrillers-make-sense-ending-list/
