Memento - My Impressions

SPOILER WARNING: This page contains detailed plot description of the film Memento. Reading this page may potentially spoil your enjoyment of this film if you have not yet seen it.

The Idea

The 2000 film Memento, directed by Christopher Nolan, sits comfortably within IMDB's Top 250 films list. It is regarded as something of a classic work of film.

Despite this, prior to 1 October 2007, I had never seen the film. I had no idea what the film was about. I did not know anything about the events of the story, or even the genre. I did however, know one very important fact about the structure of the film. The events depicted are presented as a series of scenes in reverse chronological order.

Over a discussion with some friends, several of whom are keen movie fans and very familiar with Memento, I conceived the idea that I would watch Memento for the first time, unaware of the plot, and record my impressions and thoughts as the film unfolded. Here's the catch: I would get someone to re-order the scenes so that they are presented to me in chronological order, rather than the reverse order as intended.

The Execution

Some of my friends were sceptical, and thought that this would ruin my enjoyment of the film at first viewing. But others were enthusiastic to carry out the experiment. One volunteered his video editing skills to recut the film, placing all the scenes in chronological order for me.

A few weeks later, I was handed a DVD with the recut version of the film on it. Still knowing nothing about the plot of the film - not even knowing what actors were in it - I sat down to watch it. I kept a notepad and pen handy, and recorded my impressions as the story unfolded.

I took three and a half A4 pages of notes, pausing the film at times to write down my thoughts at important moments and as new revelations occurred to me. Those notes form the basis of the next section. The notes, as I wrote them, appear in italics, with additional thoughts after the movie ended and I typed this up added in normal text.

The Notes

It's opening with the closing credits... I thought this was a clever move by the guy who did the recutting for me. I notice that the film stars Guy Pearce, an Australian actor. Cool. I don't really pay attention to the rest of the credits, being too excited by the experiment about to unfold, and eager for the action to start. The film then begins, in black and white.
Weird. This guy is waking up in a room, and he finds a note on his arm about "Sammy Jankis", then another one on his leg "reminding" him to shave. So now he's shaving his legs...(?) At this point I didn't understand what was going on at all. I thought at first that the note taped to his leg was to remind him to shave his face, and was surprised when he started shaving his leg. I thought he must be going to shave both legs, and speculated wildly that perhaps he was disguising himself as a woman for some reason. I was confused for a long time as to why he shaved his leg, and it's only now as I type this up that I speculate that he knew (prior to the opening of the film) that later on he'd want to tattoo something there, so he was reminding himself to prepare by removing the hair from his thigh.
And talking about some "condition"... He mentions a cryptic "condition" here. Later on, of course, I learn what this condition is, but for the moment I have no idea. The only thing I know about the film is that it is canonically presented in reverse chronological order. My working assumption at this point is that this character is in fact travelling backwards through time, and this is the "condition" to which he euphemistically refers.
Phone - he tells the guy he can't remember talking to him. I don't really recall the opening of this conversation, as it seemed very confusing at the time and I was struggling just to comprehend the words and make some sense of what is happening.
Got lots of stuff written on his body, which he referred to earlier. Now this is interesting! I see for the first time that he has tattooed messages written all over his body. I can't read what any of them say, however, because they aren't focused on for any length of time. So they shed no light at all on what's going on, and serve only to deepen the mystery. I'm completely lost at this point.
Says he remembers up to the injury. What injury? I have no idea yet.
Telling guy on phone about Sammy Jankis - who has lost his short term memory. So the story here is that Sammy is suffering from an inability to form new memories, so he forgets everything he's just done. At this point, I'm still thinking in terms of characters travelling backwards through time, and I think that to everyone else this would manifest as memory loss, so this is consistent. I find no reason to reject my hypothesis yet.
Investigating insurance claim? At this point it hadn't been explicitly mentioned that the main character was an insurance claim investigator, so I had to deduce this from the conversation. I was a little unsure of my conclusion until it was confirmed explicitly later.
Sammy couldn't learnt to avoid electrified objects. Although now I see this isn't consistent with the "travelling backwards through time" hypothesis, it didn't twig my thoughts while I was watching. If he was travelling backwards through time, he should have avoided the electrified objects at first, then got worse at it.
The guy turned down the claim - not covered for mental illness. It's becoming clear that he really is an insurance investigator. By now, I'm feeling that the character's fate is linked to that of Sammy Jankis somehow, since they're probably both suffering from the same "condition". So whatever happened to Sammy is probably the same thing that happened to the main character. I still don't know his name. And I'm still thinking it's a common accident sometime in the future that causes them both to start travelling backwards in time.
Says he acts on instinct to make life possible. Sensible. If he can't remember what's just happened, he need to fake it and live by the seat of his pants.
Now he's taping a needle to a pen...? Ends phone call. I really have no idea what he's planning to do with that needle. It seems extremely weird. When I see him sterilising it in a flame, I think he's going to do some drugs in a strange way or something.
He's about to start tattooing himself (Fact 5: Access to drugs). Phone rings again. I don't know why he's tattooing himself, but it seems obvious that he must have done it before. Presumably all the tattoos were self-drawn.
Police reports, looking for John G. - the name tattooed on his chest. The guy on the phone reveals police reports about John G., which describe him as a drug dealer.
Changes "Access to drugs" to "Drug dealer" - then tattoos it on. The guy is clearly integrating new data into the messages he writes to himself on his body.
Says he told Sammy's wife that he should be able to make new memories. Sammy's wife is unable to cope with the strange behaviour of Sammy, and the main character expresses scepticism about it. Clearly, before he got the same condition, he didn't really believe in it himself. Ironic.
OMG! Just discovered a tattoo telling him "Never answer the phone". Asks who's on the phone, and they hang up. This is the first major dramatic revelation of the film. The suspense increases tangibly here. I wonder just who it is on the phone, and much more strongly what the heck is going on here. It seems clear that the tattoos are messages to his future self.
Mr Shelby, Room 21. Stops phone calls. This is the first time I catch a name for the character. I feel that something dramatic should happen soon.
Listens to wall with glass. I don't know why he's doing that. This guy seems incredibly paranoid for some reason.
It's a cop? Leaves photo of him under the door. Answers phone. It seems like the guy on the phone is a cop, trying to get information out of Mr Shelby. Is the photo blackmail material? Is Shelby some sort of criminal, or informant? It's not clear what's going on here, except that Shelby is frightened and thinks he needs to follow whatever the cop tells him.
Cop on phone wants to know. The guy continues the story - tells about wife testing Sammy with timing of insulin shots - he kills her. So the cop wants Shelby to continue explaining about Sammy Jankis. It turns out Sammy really can't remember what he just did, so he gave his wife three insulin shots in a row, and she dies. This is a fairly dramatic revelation. Though what direct relevance it has for Shelby's position is unclear.
Guy says he has learnt to pretend to recognise people. It's about now that I really question and discard the "travelling backwards through time" hypothesis and start to think that Shelby is really just suffering from a lack of short term memory. After all, if Sammy Jankis is now confined to a home, it's unlikely they can meet again and suffer a common accident in the future.
Cop mentions drug dealer. Guy goes to meet him in the lobby. So Shelby is now looking for a drug dealer, and the cop has the information for him.
Cop is Gammell. Takes photo of him, goes to some place from an address the cop gives him. I learn the name of the cop. It seems like this is one of those streetwise cops who pays informants and enforcers to do some dirty work for the police department on the sly.
Lenny is his name. At last! I finally learn the first name of the main character.
? Colour flash of a woman as he searches the place. What the hell is that about? I guess he's having flashbacks to some event, but they're very short and cryptic. I have no idea what their significance is.
Car drives up - he attacks and strangles the guy, Jimmy G. Says he wants his "life back". So apparently this Jimmy G. guy did something bad to Lenny, and Lenny wants to take out revenge. I think.
What's with the colour woman flashes? There are more flashbacks (or are they flashforwards?) of a woman, in colour, contrasting with the black and white of the main action.
Takes photo and becomes colour. Has his life back? Okay, so he killed this Jimmy G. and he takes a photo of him, and now the scene changes from black and white to colour. I think this is clearly symbolic, probably of Lenny getting his life back now that he's had his revenge against Jimmy. Although I suspect it's not that simple, I don't have any idea where things will go from here. In particular, will this somehow cure Lenny of his condition? It seems highly unlikely.
Takes clothes. Lenny changes into Sammy's clothes. I don't understand why. Even typing this up now, after seeing the rest of the film, I don't understand why he takes Jimmy's clothes here. (Wait, was it because Gammell told him to?)
Strangled guy says, "Sammy" - panics Lenny. So Jimmy knew about Sammy? What does that mean? Clearly everything is not as it seems here. In hindsight, typing this up, this is still a confusing point. Why should Jimmy have known anything about Sammy Jankis? Or was Lenny just imagining the name in a shapeless breath from an expiring body?
Whoa! Cop Gammell comes in and drops some bombshells. Implies Lenny is the one who insulined his wife, Sammy didn't have a wife, Lenny is making false memories. This is a major revelation, if it's true. I'm not convinced for some reason. I'm remaining sympathetic to Lenny, and don't want to make the jump to believing that he's deluded himself into forgetting that he killed his own wife. But if it's not true, it implies that Gammell is lying for some reason. Things are definitely getting complicated here.
OMG. Gammell helped him kill the real John G. over a year ago. Lenny doesn't remember/believe. Another bombshell. But it doesn't quite make sense if Gammell's previous allegations about Lenny having killed his own wife are true. And what's a cop doing helping Lenny track down and kill someone? I'm starting to have suspicions about Gammell - he's clearly a very dirty sort of cop. What's he up to? Maybe he's a good personal friend of Lenny from before his wife died, and he is trying to help Lenny get satisfaction and live a more normal life.
Gammell is a John G... This comes up naturally in the conversation and doesn't feel like a hugely significant revelation at this point. Although his nickname is Teddy, his name is really John Edward Gammell. At this point, I don't think this bit of information is going to play a major role in the plot.
Lenny burns photos and writes note to tattoo "Fact 6: Gammell's licence plate number". Because he wants to live another revenge? Okay, this is very interesting. He's burning the evidence that he killed Jimmy G., and writing himself a note that will implicate Gammell as "John G." later on. I think he's doing this because he knows that he will forget he killed Jimmy G., and lose the satisfaction of the revenge, so he's now deliberately setting up to "discover" later on that Gammell is John G. and have another revenge, so he can feel that satisfaction again. This all fits. The only thing I don't understand is why he is setting up what appears to be his friend Gammell in this way. This feels like a mean, ruthless streak in Lenny. The only thing he wants out of life is the satisfaction of revenge, and he doesn't care who he kills to get it.
Gets tattoo. Gammell appears and says a bad cop has been doing all of the stuff he did. So Gammell is now clearly lying to Lenny. Gammell is taking advantage of Lenny's lack of memory by saying some other cop has been doing the dirty work that he's actually done himself. Gammell is up to something, but I don't know what, exactly.
! Gammell isn't really a cop! Lenny can't remember. This is huge. I discover here for the first time that Gammell is not actually a cop. Well, that certainly explains a few things. I was getting more and more suspicious of Gammell, and learning that he was lying about being a cop fits into the overall picture.
Lenny finds own note not to trust Gammell - runs via window. I forgot why Lenny wrote that note on Gammell's photo. It hadn't seemed particularly consequential when it happened.
Note on coaster was in Jimmy G.'s coat and he thinks it's his. Goes to Ferdy's bar. Natalie. Lenny thinks he has a meeting with a woman called Natalie, who is actually an associate of Jimmy G.
Natalie knows "memory guy". How does Natalie know about him? Who told her?
She test his memory with spit in drink. She convinces herself that he's not lying about the memory loss condition, then displays sympathy by bringing him a new drink, without spit in it.
Last thing he remembers is wife dying. Finally I get the story about what happened to his wife.
He tells her about attack on his wife - gets injured. So Lenny's memory loss began during an attack on his wife, when he suffered brain damage during a fight.
Says second guy hit him and planted sap on guy he shot. Police never looked for second attacker, never believed his story about two attackers. Hmmm. This is very interesting. We now have two pieces of evidence pointing at the idea that Lenny has fabricated the idea and circumstances of the attack on his wife. Gammell said he killed her with insulin himself, and Lenny says the police never believed his story about a second attacker. Those stories are inconsistent with each other, but both point at something fishy about the whole John G. revenge thing. I begin to wonder if he really has invented the John G. thing to help him through his grief and guilt.
Natalie returns and wants Lenny to get rid of Dodd, who is after Jimmy. So Natalie doesn't know yet that Jimmy is dead. She's trying to use Lenny to do some sort of dirty work for her.
? Why is she insulting him so much? He hits her. This simply made no sense at all to me. She invites him to her place, then starts laying into him with vicious insults against him and his dead wife. I was seriously confused.
She comes back and says Dodd hit her. She's playing him to set someone up? Aha! Now it makes more sense. Clever. She knows exactly how to take advantage of his memory loss. It seems like she's pretty familiar with him and how his mind currently works.
Says she went to Dodd and said she didn't have any of Jimmy's money or drugs, and Teddy (Gammell) had taken it all. (She is lying!) Okay, she's clearly trying to set up Dodd as a major bad guy and threat to her, so Lenny will do something about him. I don't think I realised at the time, but this note now shows that Natalie knows Gammell. So that's probably how she had heard about the "memory guy". Or is it? I'm getting a vague idea forming in the back of my head that maybe she might actually be his wife, but that he doesn't remember her, but instead has a false memory that she died.
Says she told Dodd about Lenny's car. He gets her to write Dodd's details so he can find Dodd and tell him to look for Teddy. This is getting a little bit convoluted and I'm not really sure where Teddy Gammell comes into this.
He goes and Teddy is in his car. He doesn't recognise him. It seems Gammell has been playing this game for ages. He knows Lenny won't recognise him each time he sees him and has a plan to handle it smoothly each time.
Teddy tells Lenny not to trust Natalie. He writes it in her photo. Right, so he makes notes on the people he interacts with so he knows how to handle them later on. I'd seen this earlier with Gammell's photo, but now it seems like he does this habitually.
Teddy tells him to go to a motel. Says Lenny doesn't even know how long ago his wife died. Interesting. Yeah, if he can't remember any of the intervening time, his wife could have died days, months, or years ago. What's he been doing all this time?
Sees "Do not believe his lies" on Teddy's photo, scribbles out "do not trust her" on Natalie's. This seems like a good call to me. At this point I trust Natalie a lot more than I do Gammell, and it would be excruciating to see Lenny make the mistake of trusting Gammell more than Natalie.
Goes to motel - calls escort and asks her to scatter things and leave by slamming the door. I'm not sure what this is all about.
! It's to pretend his wife was there. Aha, now it makes sense. He's arranging a woman to leave a warm spot in the bed so he can wake up and feel it and think it was his wife, since he knows he won't remember having arranged it earlier. Interesting.
Goes out and builds fire. Burns wife's things (So he doesn't pretend again?) This is poignant. When he realised he'd tricked himself into thinking his wife was there, he got mad at himself and wanted to stop himself doing it again, so went and burnt the objects.
Thinks he's probably tried burning stuff before to try to forget wife. More poignancy. Here I start to really feel sorry for Lenny. What he's going through is terrible.
Drives off and guy runs him down and starts chasing him with gun - because of Jimmy's car. Presumably this guy thinks Lenny is Jimmy, since he's driving around in Jimmy's car.
! It's Dodd! He races to Dodd's place to ambush. This is rather exciting. It doesn't occur to me that he may well forget what he's doing before Dodd gets there.
Breaks into wrong room, 9, not 6, by mistake. Then he goes to 6. A moment of comedy relief. Quite welcome, actually, as it's been a tense time so far.
Uh oh! Forgets he's there to ambush Dodd! In bathroom with bottle. Oh dear. This is a real suspense moment, as I saw the flash of memory loss and suddenly he can't remember what he's there for. The suspense mounts, because I don't know what's going to happen when Dodd returns. This is really good.
Has shower! In Dodd's room! The suspense is killing me!
Dodd comes back! and he thinks it's an intruder. Awesome.
KO's Dodd, finds note from Natalie and assumes he's done the job. Calls Teddy. Okay, so he manages to knock out Dodd, and only then discovers the note from Natalie asking him to get rid of him. It seems to me now that Lenny is assuming he must be some sort of hitman or enforcer or something, and he's acting out that role. But he's not quite sure, so doesn't want to kill Dodd.
Lapses. Has flashback to wife, then wakes up in room again. The flashbacks are getting stronger as time goes on. Are they building up to some dramatic revelation that he's finally going to remember?
Confused by gun in drawer and Dodd in closet when Teddy arrives.
Finds note to self to get rid of Dodd and ask Natalie.
Teddy says he doesn't know Natalie. (Is he lying?) In hindsight, he's clearly lying, as he talked about her earlier, in the car just outside her house. I mustn't have remembered that clearly when writing this note.
They run Dodd out of town. I thought they might kill Dodd. It's not entirely clear why they didn't. I suspect it's because Lenny doesn't want to think of himself as a killer. There's only one person he wants to kill. John G.
Goes back to Natalie and shows her Dodd's photo and asks who he is.
Natalie explains he took care of Dodd for her. She uncovers his tattoos, says she lost Jimmy when he went to meet a "guy called Teddy". Is she setting up Gammell, or does she really believe that Gammell is responsible for Jimmy's death?
He reminisces about wife, says he doesn't want to wake up and think she's still there. (Contradicts earlier action with escort.) It sounds like he's afraid of losing the one memory that stands out in his mind, of his wife. He wants to make sure he remembers that she died. But why then did he arrange to fool himself with the escort, into believing his wife was still there?
How can he heal if he can't feel time? That's a quotable quote right there. It summarises the problem he faces.
She feels warm bed in echo of him. Is she his wife??? Okay, this scene really drives home the inkling I had earlier that Natalie may actually be his wife, and he just can't remember her and has concocted a false memory of her dying. The woman in the flashbacks is not the same woman, but if he's deluded far enough to have a false memory of her death, then that's a relatively small extra step. At this point, I'm close to certain that Natalie is really Lenny's wife, and I suspect that that fact will be revealed later on.
Adds note to Natalie - "She has also lost someone. She will help you out of pity." Is the someone that Natalie has really lost Lenny himself? It all fits together so well, not just in a plot sense, but also in a storytelling sense, since it would be so poignant for Lenny's wife to be alive and right there, but unable to make Lenny remember her.
Next morning, he's forgotten again. Natalie is behaving like his wife, hoping things will just fix themselves, but he can't remember even being there the previous evening.
She offers to help find John G.'s licence plate from his tattoo. She's very sympathetic towards Lenny.
She says she thinks he'll remember. Is she saying that in hope, because she wants him to remember that he's her husband and that she's not really dead? It all fits together. I'm more and more positive that she's his wife.
Teddy shows up - conversation in diner about chasing John G. again.
Goes to motel, owner lets him into room - says it's wrong, but Lenny finds own note saying to shave thigh. Again with the thigh shaving? Is that to make room for another tattoo, in case he needs it?
Guy says he's rented him two rooms because boss wants to take advantage of. The motel boss wanted to take advantage of Lenny's memory loss by renting him two rooms. Heh, clever.
Finds note to meet Natalie at 1pm for info.
[As it goes on it gets more explanatory.] I'm noticing that a lot more of the situations are spelled out explicitly in the dialogue now, compared to earlier in the narrative. For instance, Lenny explicitly mentions his memory condition to several people. Although this would have been useful exposition for me earlier, it's redundant now.
She gives John E. Gammell's details to Lenny. Oh my. Now what will happen?
Makes him describe wife to her. Natalie is really desperate to try to find some hint of recollection about her in Lenny's memory. All signs point to Natalie being Lenny's wife.
Is Gammell really the John G. who killed his wife? It seemed nonsensical earlier on, but is it perhaps possible that Gammell really is the guy who murdered Lenny's wife? This contradicts the idea that Natalie is actually his wife, but if that turns out not to be the case and his wife really is dead, is it possible Gammell is the killer? If so, why would he hang around Lenny for so long? You'd think he'd run and try never to see Lenny again. It just doesn't make sense. I strongly doubt that Gammell is "the" John G. who killed Lenny's wife. But why is Natalie setting him up?
Natalie: "We are both survivors". More evidence that she is his wife. She's been living with this terrible curse for who knows how long?
Gives him room key 304 and place to kill John G. (?) I didn't quite understand this bit.
Goes to motel room 304, opens packet from Natalie, connects John G. to Teddy, phones.
Teddy comes over. Reads facts tattoos and makes connection. This is the first time I really get a good look at the tattoos and can read them properly.
Gets ready to kill Teddy with gun. Is he really going to do it?
Explains in detail to motel guy about memory. At this point in the narrative, this was incredibly overly explanatory. I wanted the action to happen, not to hear exposition that I already well understood by now!
Takes Teddy to same building as before where Jimmy died. Hang on. Natalie gave him this address. How did she know about this place? Is there a connection I'm missing there?
Finds bullets he left in the other car. This refers back to the earlier scene after Lenny killed Jimmy, and left a bunch of bullets in the car parked outside the building. I don't know what the significance of this is.
Hits Teddy. Teddy says to check basement to find out who he really is. Presumably Jimmy is still in the basement, amd if Lenny goes down there he'll find out that he's killed another "John G." before.
Kills him! I was half expecting it, but also not really expecting it. I thought Lenny would go down to the basement and find Jimmy and then something dramatic would happen. I didn't really expect him to just kill Gammell here and now.
Take photo. Opening credits roll. Whoa. That's it?
Does that satisfy him? The big question left dangling: Now that he has a photo of a "John G." that he's killed, will he be satisfied that he's taken his revenge? It seems unlikely, given that he killed Jimmy G., convinced that it was John G., earlier, and took a photo, but then burnt it so he could go after someone else in another revenge.

The Conclusion

Memento holds together well as a chronological narrative. It's a bit confusing at first, but after a while it settles into a reasonably comprehensible plotline, albeit one with a few large, tantalising mysteries. If it wasn't for the overly explanatory dialogue about his memory condition right near the end, I'd say it would be a perfectly fine movie with no glaring flaws in its technical construction.

In fact, now having seen it in chronological order, I'm curious as to how well it holds together in the canonical reverse chronological order. My feeling is that it may actually suffer for it, for a few reasons:

There are some things that characters do that make sense in the chronological narrative, because you've seen the set-up that goes on before. In the reversed chronology, you'd see the effect before the cause, which in several cases would be extremely confusing. I realise that temporary confusion is probably part of the goal of the film as released, but my feeling is that it could detract from the narrative rather than enhance it.
The final scenes, being the short black and white ones where he wakes up in the motel room, would seem to lead nowhere at all. There isn't a big moment at that end of the film.

The big issue is that there was no revelation at the end to explain the central mystery of the plot. The competing theories as I see them are:

Lenny remembers his wife's death correctly. There was another attacker, named John G. Lenny tracked down and killed John G. a year ago, but doesn't remember it. Gammel is a friend trying to help Lenny achieve satisfaction in his revenge, to which end he sets up the drug dealer Jimmy G. Lenny knows he won't remember killing Jimmy G. and sets himself up to perform another revenge killing, of his friend Gammell. Gammell's death is a tragedy.
Lenny remembers his wife's death correctly. There was another attacker, named John G. Gammell is John G., but has been trying to get Lenny to kill someone else (Jimmy G.) so that Lenny will think he has his revenge and Gammell will be off the hook. Lenny never figures this out, but by curious circumstance sets himself up to kill Gammell anyway. Gammell's death is the final justice.
Lenny remembers his wife's death incorrectly. There never was a second attacker, but he's convinced himself there was. Gammel is a friend trying to help Lenny achieve satisfaction in his revenge, to which end he sets up the drug dealer Jimmy G. Lenny knows he won't remember killing Jimmy G. and sets himself up to perform another revenge killing, of his friend Gammell. Gammell's death is a tragedy.
Lenny remembers his wife's death incorrectly. Gammell was right when he said that Lenny killed her himself with an overdose of insulin - an event which Lenny has mentally transferred to another person. But knowing that Lenny will never believe that, Gammel tries to help Lenny achieve satisfaction in his revenge, to which end he sets up the drug dealer Jimmy G. Lenny knows he won't remember killing Jimmy G. and sets himself up to perform another revenge killing, of his friend Gammell. Gammell's death is a tragedy.
Lenny's wife is not actually dead. He has a false memory, presumably caused by whatever has caused his memory loss condition. Natalie is his wife, but she can't make him remember her. Gammel is a friend trying to help Lenny achieve satisfaction in his (false) revenge, to which end he sets up the drug dealer Jimmy G. Lenny knows he won't remember killing Jimmy G. and sets himself up to perform another revenge killing, of his friend Gammell. Gammell's death is a tragedy.

Right now, as I type this up, I favour theory 5, that Natalie is Lenny's wife. It seems to have the fewest holes in it and to be the most satisfying, given the details of Lenny's interactions with Natalie. I can't believe that Gammell killed Lenny's wife; if he did, why on Earth would he hang around, talking to Lenny all the time? He'd be much better off hightailing it across the country. So as slimy as Gammell seems to be, I think he has to be a concerned friend of Lenny's, and theory 2 is right out. Of theories 1 and 3, there's not really much to distinguish them. Theory 1 seems a bit more likely simply by Ockham's Razor. Theory 4 is intriguing, and hinted at in a couple of the brief flashbacks; it also has direct support from Gammell's dialogue, so it seems a stronger possibility than 1 and 3.

One open question remains for me: Where did Lenny get the name "John G." from in the first place? I can't remember that ever being explained. Maybe I missed it. I'll have to watch the movie again, in the intended sequence.

The Second Viewing

Having viewed the film in chronological order and typed up everything above, I rewatched the film a day later, in the canonical order. The goal was to see how my impression of the film would change, watching it in the original ordering.

A major thing I noticed was that I'd made some straight out mistakes in my recollection of events as listed above:

I had completely missed the note stuck to the mirror early on, telling Lenny to "shave left thigh". Thus my incorrect impression that he was about to shave his legs completely.
I didn't remember that Lenny himself had the police reports when typing up my notes. All I had was the scrawled "Police reports, looking for John G." written down, and I reinterpreted that as meaning that the guy on the phone was telling Lenny about the report.

Besides these outright errors, there were many other interesting observations I made in my second viewing. Again, I recorded them as I watched, this time ending up with a single page of notes.

The Notes - Second Viewing

"Not nice to make fun of handicap" - could think it's just that he can't recognise his own car. With this scene where Teddy tries to trick Lenny into taking the wrong car now occurring very early, before Lenny's memory condition is explained, the viewer could take it to mean Lenny is suffering from some mental problem that simply means he can't recognise his on car without referring to a photo. This is a totally different take on the scene to the way I first experienced it.
Oh - the b/w parts are intercut! Aha! This explains a lot. I had not realised that the original ordering had been done in this way. I thought that the film had originally been ordered with all the scenes in reverse chronological order, ending with all the black and white scenes one after another. I'd noticed that the b/w scenes tended to be much shorter than the colour ones, particularly at the very start of the chronology. I thought the effect of reversing these would be to make the memory lapses appear to get closer and closer together, until perhaps they converged to a point at the beginning of the chronology where his memory occupies almost no time at all. Then the ending of the film would be when his memory converges to a point and we never get to see anything from before that time, perhaps implying that he had only just woken up from his brain damage and his memory is slowly improving throughout the film. Realising now that the b/w scenes are actually intercut suddenly changes my whole impression of what the original film must be like.
Lenny seems a lot more thoughtful as he discovers Teddy is John Gammell. This refers to the chronologically second time Lenny discovers this fact, but the first time we see it in the original ordering, as he examines the licence details Natalie gave him. Whereas in the chronological viewing, I already knew this by this point, in the original ordering it comes as a revelation, and it makes Lenny appear to be significantly more thoughtful about the discovery.
Finds tattoo - sets up Teddy as much more sinister. When Lenny then finds the tattoos implicating Teddy: white, male, John, G____, drug dealer, licence number; it now plays out as much more dramatic than in the chronological viewing. It makes the viewer believe much more strongly in Teddy's guilt, since you don't know the circumstances that led up to it.
First encounter with Natalie reinforces idea she is his wife. She calls him Lenny. By now we know Lenny has problems remembering things. He meets a woman who calls him by the name his wife "used to" call him by. I think this was designed to suggest to the viewer that Natalie may be Lenny's wife and he just doesn't remember her. At this point in viewing the original ordering, I find this scene to reaffirm my belief from my first viewing that Natalie is his wife.
"Memories can be distorted" - in diner with Teddy. I'm noticing a lot more references this time through to Lenny stating that memory can't be trusted, that it's better to trust recorded observations than your own recollection. This suddenly strikes me - this time through - as ironic. I'm starting to think that I should distrust Lenny's memory of his wife being killed. I'm getting a message that he's placing too much faith in his own memory, despite his insistence that memories can't be trusted.
Natalie offers to help find John G. - is she setting up Teddy? No, it's really his licence. I had a brief thought here that Natalie may have faked the DMV licence information to deliberately implicate Teddy, but then I quickly realised that the licence number really is Teddy's. So that theory lasted only a few seconds.
Needle bit - he says Mrs Jankis didn't realise you can't force someone to remember. More irony. This is when Lenny is describing Sammy Jankis's story to the guy on the phone in the b/w scene where he's preparing the needle to tattoo himself. I'd missed the significance on the first viewing, but this time Lenny's comment hits hard. He's saying that you can't force someone to remember - which could easily apply to Natalie being unable to force Lenny to remember that she is his wife. Equally, it could apply to the fact that Lenny can't remember killing his wife himself with insulin, although at this point I wasn't thinking about that possibility too much.
Police report - Lenny has it. Here's where I realised my recollection error about how the police report came into the story.
Concludes he's a dealer because car had money in it. Okay, this explains the plot point about how Lenny knew John G. was a drug dealer. In my first viewing, I was not absorbing a lot of these small details.
When Natalie returns and says Dodd beat her: Getting v. confused about Natalie and Teddy - do they know each other or not? She mentions Teddy. It was unclear in my first viewing whether Natalie and Teddy knew each other or not, and it's getting murkier, if anything.
She deliberately hid all the pens! So Lenny can't remember he hit her. Aha! I didn't notice that the first time. Prior to insulting Lenny and provoking him to hit her, she hides all the pens so he can't write himself a note to remind him of it later. Interesting.
"Remember Sammy Jankis" in Natalie's house prompts flash to syringe - insulin? When Lenny sees the words on his hand he has a sudden flash to an image of someone tapping a syringe. Is this merely an indication of his memory of Sammy killing his wife, or is it a hint that Lenny's memory is incorrect, and he injected his own wife with insulin? Throughout this viewing of the film, I've been thinking about where the narrative is going. With the b/w scenes being intercut, I realise we're converging towards the moment when b/w changes to colour - which is right after Lenny kills Jimmy. It suddenly dawns on me that that's around the point where Teddy tells Lenny that he killed his own wife with insulin, but has transferred that memory on to Sammy Jankis. Realisation strikes like a hammer, and I know what the film is working towards. The climax point is where Teddy tells Lenny that! The structure of the film is set up to deliver that as the startling revelation. And all of a sudden things start to fall into place. The film is designed to shock you at the end with this revelation and make the viewer think that Lenny killed his own wife and doesn't remember it. This now overshadows my theory that Natalie is his wife. It's clear that the goal of the film maker was to convince the audience at the end of the film that Lenny killed his own wife. But it's extremely interesting that when watching it in chronological order I didn't get that feeling very strongly at all. It just sounded like another one of Teddy's wild stories at that time, and wasn't developed further in the chronology, so it faded from importance. Presenting it at the end of the film... wow, killer blow.
Licence tattoo - don't realise this time it is Teddy. Interesting! This time when Lenny is getting the tattoo of the licence number and Lenny pops his head into the tattoo parlour, the viewer has not seen the part where Lenny records the number. So it seems less dramatic than in the chronological order, where the viewer is gasping in case Teddy sees what the tattoo is.
"Just write Teddy" - conceals Gammell name from Lenny. When Lenny takes Teddy's photo, he tells him to just write "Teddy" on it, which effectively conceals from Lenny later on that Teddy's real name is John Gammell. In my original chronological viewing, this seemed a fair enough thing, since he was a cop and probably didn't want his real name on the photo. But in this version, it seems much more sinister, as though Teddy is very deliberately misleading Lenny's attention away from his real name.
Jimmy is looking for Teddy - Jimmy knows Lenny. When Jimmy enters the building he says he is looking for Teddy. Now why would that be so? It didn't raise any big questions on first viewing, but now it does. And when Jimmy sees Lenny, he recognises him - so clearly they've met before. Hmmm. Again, not something I worried about on first viewing, but that now seem like nagging details that I need to puzzle over.
Why does he take Jimmy's clothes and car? When I typed up my first impressions, I thought I must have missed some reason why Lenny took Jimmy's clothes and car. But on second viewing, I still don't see a reason, despite looking for it. Confusing.
Jimmy said Sammy because he knows Lenny as Sammy. This is very interesting. It occurred to me suddenly after Jimmy uttered the name "Sammy" as he died. The first time, it just made no sense, but now, knowing where the film is going, it suddenly hits me like a ton of bricks. Maybe Lenny is Sammy. It fits. Jimmy said he knew Lenny, but never said his name, until now?
Teddy has cop ID. Okay, this is confusing. In my first viewing, the impression I got was that Teddy was a cop, until a point where I "learnt" that he wasn't a cop, and was just pretending to be one. But I'd forgotten that he'd shown a police ID. Now that I see this, I wonder how did I get the idea that he wasn't really a cop? I'm going to have to watch the film again to see where that came from the first time.
Wife survived the assault. Oh my. Somehow, on my first viewing, during this part where Teddy tells Lenny that he killed his wife himself, I missed the statement that Teddy made that his wife had survived the assault. I had wondered how the insulin thing could have worked in, given such a strong memory of an attack and murder. It hadn't occurred to me that his wife had simply survived it and that he hadn't realised or remembered it. All of a sudden the pieces fall into place. It's abundantly clear that the conclusion the viewer is meant to reach is that Lenny's wife survived the attack, Lenny suffered brain damage and thought his wife was dead, and could no longer remember being with her, and had killed her with insulin in the manner attributed to Sammy Jankis.
Yeah, he deliberately lets himself forget the story. He lies to himself to make himself happy. And then the denouement, in which Lenny sets up Teddy as the next John G., to satisfy his insane lust for revenge. Lenny comes across as much more crazy and ruthless now. It's a fitting end to the film in this ordering.

The Second Conclusion

I'm astounded at how different my perception of this film is after the second viewing. The whole idea that Lenny killed his wife himself never really hit home the first time, because it appeared midway through the film and I simply wrote it off as another one of what seemed to be many unreliable stories that Teddy told. That opened the door to alternative explanations, including the one that really took hold of me: that Natalie was his wife.

I realise now that the Natalie theory has too many holes in it to stand up properly, but it had seemed so convincing at the time, particularly given the development of the scenes between Lenny and Natalie towards the end of the chronology, when I was looking for the giveaway clues as to what was going on.

The original ordering also makes Lenny seem much more ruthless, as it emphasises his conscious decision to set Teddy up as the next in a series of "John G."s. In the chronological ordering, Lenny comes across as a more sympathetic character, who is likely being manipulated by the people around him. The horror of him setting up Teddy is lost in the middle of the film, and the focus is put on his killing of Teddy, which made me seriously consider the possibility that Teddy is the one who killed his wife, and that the final act of the story was justice being done.

In the end, I see why the film was structured the way it was. The revelation that Lenny (probably) killed his own wife is the climactic moment and properly belongs at the end of the film. Having said that, I don't think my enjoyment of the film suffered in any way from seeing it first in chronological order. If anything, it made that moment of realisation all the more shocking and powerful, as I'd actually known it all along but hadn't really believed it the first time. I think this experiment was valuable and a good experience, and I'm very glad I did it.

Now I have to go watch the film again to pick up the fragments I missed on the first two viewings.