Characters / Memento

Characters for the psychological thriller Memento.

Beware of spoilers.

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Leonard Shelby

Played By: Guy Pearce

• Affably Evil: Leonard is generally a polite and friendly guy, whose condition makes him come across as guileless and almost innocent. He's also a Serial Killer who willingly deludes himself into murdering people so that he can have a purpose in life. His good qualities are totally genuine because Leonard can't remember that he's the villain of his own story.
• Amnesiac Liar: Leonard relies on his system of notes and photos, which Teddy warns him could be unreliable. Turns out Teddy was right, and among other things, Leonard tricks himself into killing Teddy even though he's not the one Leonard is looking for.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Due to his condition, Leonard is completely oblivious to his own nature and believes he's a noble crusader avenging his wife's death rather than the seriously ill man who has been warped into an outright serial killer.
• Criminal Amnesiac: Deconstructed. Several people try to use Leonard Shelby's anterograde amnesia by setting their enemies up to look like John G, the man whom Leonard is planning to kill for raping and murdering his late wife. At the end it's revealed that Leonard has been playing himself as well by killing fake John Gs to give himself purpose in life.
• Crusading Widower: He's out to avenge his murdered wife. Or would be, if he hadn't already avenged her, forgotten about it, and kept crusading so as to give himself a purpose in life.
• Defective Detective: Leonard is trying to track down the man who raped and murdered his wife and investigating several leads, but his anterograde amnesia causes him to make several ill-advised moves. These include nearly being killed by Dodd twice by misjudging the situation he finds himself in, and stealing the clothes and car of a man he just killed, then visiting that man's girlfriend not even an hour later.
• Disability Superpower: Is described by another character as the perfect assassin - since he can't remember ever having killed anyone, he doesn't act like his targets expect an assassin to act and feels no guilt afterwards. His partner keeps setting him up to kill people and they never see him coming.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": Hates being called "Lenny", because it reminds him of his wife.
• The Dreaded: Turns out, Leonard is known and feared as the "Memory Guy", for the fact that people tend to take advantage of his condition by using him to kill people by pointing him in a direction and telling him that the target is the "John G." he is looking for.
• Dream-Crushing Handicap: He has lost his capacity for short-term memory and is repeatedly told by the other characters that his going on a quest to avenge his wife's murder is a fool's errand since, even if he does manage to succeed, he won't remember it anyway and thus won't derive any emotional closure from it. As the ending reveals, it's even worse than that. He already DID avenge his wife, failed to receive the closure he wanted but kept on hunting anyway until he mistakenly killed someone completely unrelated to his wife's murder. The film ends with him starting his investigation all over again, with the strong implication that he'll kill at least one more person before he's finished.
• Evil All Along: Lenny is NOT a sympathetic figure. Despite his mental problem he has managed to embrace a serial killer figure. Maybe.
• Fatal Flaw: Leonard assumes that his own judgement is ironclad despite his condition. It very much is not. None of the movie would have occurred if it hadn't been for Leonard's capacity for self-delusion.
• Human Notepad: Leonard uses tattoos as a Note to Self to make up for his inability to form new memories. Most notable is his "Remember Sammy Jankis" tattoo. It's Leonard's way of using his own condition against himself, to continue perpetuating the lie that is Sammy Jankis as a fellow amnesiac instead of a scammer and that he's not a walking, talking Evidence Dungeon. By putting it on his hand, he ensures he'll look at it every so often.
• I Reject Your Reality: Pretty much Leonard's M.O. for how he ended up as an oblivious Serial Killer. Instead of accepting and being reminded of how his wife really died, Leonard purposely sets up a never-ending revenge quest to alleviate his guilt. This is especially prevalent in the final (technically first) scene where in his fleeting moment of clarity when he realizes everything he's done, Leonard still chooses to exploit his own condition and deliberately put false clues to fuel his empty crusade rather than tattooing the truth onto himself.
• Living Lie Detector: Leonard learned to do this before his injury as an insurance claims investigator. As such, it is extremely difficult to deceive him in a face to face conversation. Or so he believes.
• Manipulative Bastard: Towards himself; using labelled pictures and his many tattoos, Leonard, knowing that he'll quickly forget the all-important context of the events he's recording, creates his own impression of what he assumes are unquestionable facts, effectively conning himself into continuing a crusade that never needed to begin in the first place.
• The Mentally Disturbed: If one believes Teddy's confession at the end, then Leonard was institutionalized for some length of time after his wife's death, but must have escaped at some point to continue looking for his "wife's killer".
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: The picture of Teddy that Leonard left for himself warning him to "not believe his lies" is correct in the sense that Teddy has indeed been lying to and manipulating Leonard to use him for his own ends for years. But it is not true for the reason Leonard thinks it is and allowed himself to forget.
• Obliviously Evil: Leonard doesn't know, and thanks to his condition, is incapable of knowing that he's become a serial killer.
• Self-Serving Memory: Leonard's false memories of Sammy Jankis' condition and his wife's diabetes can be regarded as this. Of course, it requires that Teddy, who himself is a bit of an Unreliable Narrator, can be trusted.
• Serial Killer: And thanks to his condition, he has no idea.
• Tragic Villain: Leonard is basically a serial killer, but he'll never realize what he's truly become; he simply cannot remember anything afterwards and knowingly manipulates himself by leaving behind fake clues to kill people.
• Unreliable Narrator: Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia, so his memory is extremely limited. It is revealed that he in fact makes deliberate use of his condition in order to deceive and manipulate himself. It's also revealed that the memories he does have are heavily distorted.
• Unwitting Pawn: Natalie and Teddy just love using the protagonist's short-term memory in order to manipulate him and at the end, or rather, the middle, we learn that he actually manipulated "himself" into shooting Teddy by leaving indications that he was John G.
• Walking Spoiler: As you can tell from all the white spaces, it's very hard to discuss Leonard without spoiling a major plot twist in the film.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Everyone in the film ruthlessly exploits Leonard's condition to some degree or another to further their criminal schemes. When the film starts, he's already a serial killer and most tragically, he's manipulating himself into killing the only person who's holding him in check.
• Would Hit a Girl: Although it took Natalie some effort to get him reach his Rage Breaking Point.

Teddy

Played By: Joe Pantoliano

• Affably Evil: He's a crooked cop who has been using Leonard for his own ends but he has Joe Pantoliano's sly charm and quick wit and does genuinely care about and see Leonard as a friend.
• Ambiguously Evil: While Teddy is introduced as a villain, it gradually becomes clear that he is probably Leonard's only real friend, who is nevertheless manipulating him for his own ends. At the end he claims that he helped Lenny get revenge on the original John G and has been trying to help Leonard cope with his amnesia. Even then Teddy's true motives are left ambiguous. In fact, the same can be applied to Leonard, as it's unclear how much he's doing of his own accord and how much is manipulation by Teddy and others, as not even he knows.
• Anti-Villain: He's a crooked cop who's been manipulating Leonard into murdering drug dealers and other criminals for his own benefit but he's also implied to sincerely care about and see Leonard as a friend and believes his manipulation is the best way to keep Leonard in check and keep him from hurting innocent people.
• Beard of Evil: Lampshaded; Leonard snarks that Dodd was probably intimidated by Teddy's "sinister mustache". In truth, he's more sleazy than evil.
• Big "NO!": Teddy screams "No!" and tries to get away from Leonard when he notices that Leonard's memory faded again while trying to convince Leonard not to kill him.
• Deadpan Snarker: Teddy snarks at Leonard whenever he gets a chance to. Makes sense given who plays him
  I've had more rewarding relationships than this. Although, I do get to keep telling the same jokes.
• Dirty Cop: Teddy claims to be an undercover cop, but he's not above facilitating vigilante justice by helping Leonard find John G (who killed Leonard's wife), and uses Lenny to murder people for profit.
• Given Name Reveal: At the end, it's revealed that Teddy's real name being John Edward Gammell was no secret, meaning that he knows he is a candidate for Leonard's hit list. He uses his mother's nickname for him as an alias.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His attempts to profit off Leonard's condition end up causing his own murder. While Teddy tells himself (and Leonard) that he's doing it for Leonard's sake as well, it's clear that Leonard really does belong in a mental institution considering the severity of his condition and the fact that he's a danger to himself and others.
• Ironic Death: After using Leonard to kill several drug dealers with the name "John G." and profiting off of this by stealing their money, Leonard decides to use the fact that Teddy is himself a John G. to target him. To add even more to it, Natalie, who herself was a victim of Teddy's "John G." scheme, helps pushing Leonard in that direction.
• Middle Name Basis: His first name is John but he goes by his middle name Edward and the nickname "Teddy".
• Posthumous Character: He is killed in the first scene but due to the film's nonlinear story appears in many scenes after that.
• Treacherous Advisor: Complicated because his intentions aren't purely evil. While he's manipulating Lenny for his own purposes, he also does it to help Lenny function in daily life and generally directs his impulses towards dangerous criminals to at least avoid innocent people being killed, and Lenny is also manipulating himself into killing innocent people just so he has a purpose in life. Teddy is a smug and greedy enabler, while Lenny is a willing serial killer... and tragically doesn't even remember it.
• Villains Never Lie: Teddy tells Leonard that Leonard killed his own wife with an insulin injection, and now he continues to search for a new murderer time and again in order to have some meaning to his life. We don't know if Teddy is really a villain, or whether he says the truth or not, but this is the second-to-last scene (or is it the second scene?), so we tend to believe him. Not to mention the whole self-manipulation twist-ending. But then, on the other hand, Teddy also straight up confesses to having frequently manipulated and lied to Leonard for his own ends for quite some time during the same rant, and might have just been trying to emotionally hurt Leonard (knowing fully well that he wouldn't remember it later any way) to let out some frustration about the fact that the monster he had a large hand in creating is obviously starting to slip out of his control.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Probably the most generous way to interpret his actions. While he is manipulating Leonard to kill people for his own benefit, he does so partially because he knows Leonard will never stop and wants to at least try and direct his impulses in a somewhat better way rather than just let him hurt innocent people indiscriminately. That said, he obviously also has no problems or scruples whatsoever with attempting to profit off of Leonard's condition and the deaths resulting from it.

Natalie

Played By: Carrie-Anne Moss

• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Natalie seems like a nice girl at first, but then is revealed to have taken advantage of Leonard. She continuously insulted him and called his wife a whore, then manipulated him into thinking that he needed to get rid of Dodd (while rubbing it in his face). Turns out to be subverted later on when it's revealed that he actually killed her boyfriend, which she knew all along.
• First-Name Basis: Is only ever referred to as "Natalie."
• Femme Fatale: At first, it seems like she's looking out for Leonard both "out of pity" and out of gratitude for helping her out of a Damsel in Distress situation. As the movie works back, we find out she's taking advantage of his condition to wipe out her late boyfriend's "business" rival.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite her manipulative actions in sending Leonard after Dodd, she actually does gain sympathy for him when she finds out how broken Leonard is by the loss of his wife and his condition and genuinely helps him on his quest. Even though she likely knows that he killed Jimmy, she never tries to get revenge on him. She also clearly loved Jimmy, which if you class Natalie as evil would be an Even Evil Has Loved Ones situation.
• Manipulative Bitch: She ends up manipulating Leonard into thinking that Dodd assaulted her and that he needs to get rid of him. Turns out to be justified later on as Natalie has good reason to hate Leonard.
• Replacement Goldfish: Not Natalie herself, but Leonard. She realizes immediately that Leonard killed her boyfriend Jimmy when he inadvertently shows up at her place of work wearing Jimmy's clothes and driving his car. Not only does she manipulate Leonard into becoming her hired muscle against Dodd, but takes him as her new lover.

Dodd

Played By: Callum Keith Rennie

• Butt-Monkey: Gets attacked and knocked out in his bathroom, asked by his attacker who did this to him, and gets kicked out of town. Dodd will be rather confused by the end.
• Last-Name Basis: Maybe. It's never said whether Dodd is his first or last name.

Catherine Shelby

Played By: Jorja Fox

• The Lost Lenore: Leonard's dead wife, whom he couldn't save from being killed in the home invasion that left him with brain damage.
• Posthumous Character: Leonard's late wife, who exists only in his memories anymore.
• Too Dumb to Live/Driven to Suicide: According to Teddy, she tricked Leonard into overdosing her hoping that he would "snap out" of his condition. Alternatively, she might have crossed the Despair Event Horizon, seeing no improvement in Lenny's condition.

Sammy Jankis

Played By: Stephen Tobolowsky

• Con Man: At least, if Teddy's speech to Leonard at the end can be believed. Teddy says that there was a Sammy Jankis who was a con artist that Leonard exposed as a fraud, probably with the electric shock test shown in the movie. Leonard, it seems, has conflated the memory of his own wife, and her death by insulin overdose, with that of Sammy Jankis.
• Nice Guy: Nothing but polite to everyone around him, barring one occasion where he angrily snaps at a doctor for getting shocked during one of his tests.

Jimmy Grantz

Played By: Larry Holden

• I Never Told You My Name: Mentioning Sammy Jankis clues Leonard in that Jimmy isn't who he is made to believe he is and that they have met before.
• Mugged for Disguise: He ends up as a posthumous victim of this, as Leonard takes his clothes and his car after killing him.
• Posthumous Character: He's already dead by the time the movie starts, and is only mentioned by Natalie and seen in a photograph. This is because Leonard killed him in one of the last scenes in the movie.
• Sacrificial Lamb: He's murdered by Leonard in his first scene.

Burt

Played By: Mark Boone Junior

• Affably Evil: He tries to rip off Leonard on the orders of his boss and he also works as a look-out for Jimmy, a drug dealer. He's pretty friendly though, especially when it comes to Leonard's condition. He cracks a joke at Leonard's expense, but it's certainly not as mean-spirited as Natalie and Leonard thinks it's Actually Pretty Funny.
• Audience Surrogate: In his first scene, Leonard explains how his anterograde amnesia works to Burt, something that most audience members have likely never heard of, or if they are aware of amnesia, they assume it to be Laser-Guided Amnesia. Burt realizes that everything Leonard experiences is "backwards", describing the plot structure.
• First-Name Basis: As with most characters in this movie. The promotional website confirms his last name is "Hadley."
• Nice Guy: Downplayed. Despite the fact that he's charging Leonard for two rooms, he generally seems pretty helpful to Leonard.

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