In watching Memento, we soon become aware that Leonard is on some kind of a quest, and he eventually gives his version of the events that caused him to undertake it. Leonard claims that one night he came upon two men just after they had raped and murdered his wife. He says he killed one man, but the other got away. While battling the two men, Leonard received the head injury that he says triggered his short-term memory loss. Leonard’s quest is to find and kill the man who got away. However, at one point Teddy tells Leonard that his memory of these events is seriously flawed.
But Leonard has a photo of Teddy on which he has written, "Don’t believe his lies." It’s possible that Leonard was right to make this annotation since Teddy does seem to be a pretty devious guy, and it’s strange that he keeps popping up wherever Leonard is, offering various glib explanations of what is going on. Teddy sometimes tells Leonard he’s a cop, and at one point we see what is apparently a photocopy of Teddy’s driver’s license giving his name as John Edward Gammell. In my opinion, figuring out the relationship between Teddy and Leonard is one of the main keys to understanding the film.
The only other major character in the movie is Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), a bartender Leonard encounters as a result of finding her name and work address in the pocket of a jacket he is wearing. Natalie has a drug-dealer boyfriend who has disappeared, and when she first meets Leonard, she must be surprised to find him driving her boyfriend’s Jaguar. An ambiguous relationship develops between Leonard and Natalie, and he carries a photo of her on which he has written, "She will help you out of pity." But does Natalie really care about Leonard, or is she a standard noir femme fatale who tries to manipulate everything and everyone for her own benefit?
On Leonard’s hand is tattooed "Remember Sammy Jankis," and Leonard tells a story about Sammy that may shed light on Leonard’s condition. Leonard says that before his wife’s murder he was an insurance claims investigator, and in that capacity he had to deal with the peculiar case of Sammy Jankis. As a result of an auto accident, Sammy claimed he suffered from short-term memory loss, and Leonard was instrumental in Sammy’s insurance claim being denied. Leonard goes on to relate his version of the tragic ending of the Sammy Jankis story, but later Teddy says that Leonard is wrong about some crucial details.
I wouldn’t dream of spoiling your fun in trying to figure out what’s going on in Memento, but I do propose that to unlock its meaning you have to carefully study the last several minutes of the film, perhaps playing this part back repeatedly. If you want to cheat, you can read Andy Klein’s Salon article "Everything You Wanted to Know About Memento" at the link given at the end of this article. But to my way of thinking, the most important thing in understanding Memento is to avoid focusing too much on the nature of memory and instead reflect on the nature of self-deception.
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