10 Best Films With Unreliable Narrators

Narrator Leonard Shelby has no short-term memory since he and his wife were attacked in their home and his wife was killed. In order to enable the viewer to experience the story in the same way as he does, the movie is told in reverse order, allowing us to piece together bits of the story in the same timeframe as he does.

The film does an excellent job of making it nearly impossible to tell which characters are helping Leonard and which are using him or have ill intentions towards him. Even the ‘facts’ that he supposedly finds out are often shown to be flawed as they have been manipulated by other people.

The story is often frustrating to watch when we see Leonard realise when someone is using him but they are aware of his condition so engineer the situation so he cannot record what he has learned. Natalie is especially good at this, removing all writing materials before she starts to insult Leonard’s wife, knowing that he will forget what she has said by the time she next sees him.

Teddy is the one who informs Leonard that he was the one who accidentally killed his own wife, but even this is not confirmed to be absolutely true, and could just be another manipulation by a man who has admitted he has been using Leonard. It also appears Leonard is aware enough to repress painful memories, preferring to live in ignorance.