Memory

Sylvia is a single mother, social worker, and former alcoholic. After a school reunion, a stranger knocks on her door. The following morning, she finds him sleeping on her steps, soaked from the rain. She invites him in, and slowly these two damaged souls find a way to live together. Memory, Michel Franco's new film, is the gentlest and best of his films. More than questions about the place of the past in the present or the role of memory in our lives, it is about the bond that develops between its protagonists. Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard - who won the acting award at the Venice Film Festival - deliver bare performances that sketch a fragile but possible human connection. This potential envelops the film with compassion and hope.