Sometimes a film tries too hard to be different, to be unique, to stand apart from the rest. Christopher Nolan's "Memento", however, does it with a brilliant touch.
The narrative takes a whole new and offbeat twist by telling the film backwards as our "hero" Leonard(Guy Pearce) tries to put together the mystery of who killed his wife. Along the way he encounters Teddy(Joe Pantoliano), who is trying to help him put everything together. He also meets Natalie(Carrie-Anne Moss) who seemingly helps him out of the kindness in her heart.
The film is broken in it's narrative style, with bits of the story repeating in a sort of over-lap fashion that allows the viewer to better put things together. There is, however, a part of the film to goes forward as we see Leonard talking on the phone, and these sequences are shown in a black and white vouyeristic view. At the "end" of the film the two narratives finally collide into one semi-coherient story.
The scenes of Leonard talking on the phone give the viewer a sort of god-like feeling as we look down on him and his life. The other scenes, the ones going backwards, use a much more "hands on" camera feel. The view is shakey and uneven and gives a sense of being there with Leonard as things occur.
Because of the broken and reversed narrative styles the film can be a little hard to follow, so it's advised to see it more than once if you plan to fully understand it all.