Goofs for
Memento (2000) More at IMDbPro »

• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Leonard is able to remember that he has a problem with his memory because he has conditioned himself to look at his "Remember Sammy Jankis" tattoo. Similarly he has conditioned himself to check his pockets for Polaroids to remind himself of other essential day-to-day facts. Alternatively, it could be because Leonard has Korsakov's syndrome, sometimes caused by acute trauma. In some cases the patient knows that they have the disorder. Arguments have been presented both for and against this but, in the end, it's the reality that the movie presents us with and so, for 113 minutes at least, it's true.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: ...or not - your call. Since the movie is about memory and its fragility/unreliability, it is eminently possible that all supposed continuity errors are deliberate. However, given the structural complexity of this movie, and bearing in mind the number of errors which manage to find their way into even the simplest linear narrative, it is equally possible that they are genuine errors and so they are reported here for your consideration.
  
  
• Continuity: Natalie's hair in the restaurant scene.
  
  

• Miscellaneous: When Natalie shows Leonard the picture of herself with Jimmy, she is smiling (in addition to Jimmy having a mustache). Later, when he gets out of bed and views it again, she is no longer smiling, and Jimmy's mustache is gone. Finally, in the close-up of Leonard writing the note on the back of the Polaroid he took of her, the picture has reverted to its original state.
  
  
• Continuity: In the opening scene, Teddy's glasses flip over between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: The size of the tape pulled off the roll and applied to Dodd's face.
  
  
• Continuity: As Leonard stands at Dodd's door preparing to enter, there isn't a window on his left side. Once Leonard breaks into Dodd's room, a window appears to his left.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The Jaguar XK8 has antilock brakes and would not have managed the entertainingly screeching skid as it stopped outside the tattoo parlor. Only the rear wheels are locked and clearly the handbrake was used to make an amusing noise. No matter how it was achieved, it was not a natural stop and there is no evidence to suggest that Leonard is a stunt driver who might habitually stop like that.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Leonard discovers the bullets in the pickup, the primers are obviously used and would not fire.
  
  
• Continuity: When Natalie kisses Leonard goodbye, her lips are not cut, though they are before and after.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In a couple places, such as after Jimmy is killed, the Polaroid camera does not make the correct motor noise.
  
  
• Continuity: When Leonard burns Catherine's hairbrush in the fire. you can see that Catherine's book is also burning next to it before Leonard has put it into the fire.
  
  
• Continuity: At the beginning, when Leonard and Teddy arrive at the abandoned building the weather is cloudy, but when they get out of the Jaguar it becomes sunny all of a sudden.
  
  
• Continuity: When Leonard is writing on the back of Teddy's Polaroid, he sets the picture down on his jacket; however, in the close-ups of Leonard writing, he appears to have the picture directly on the bed.
  
  
• Continuity: When Leonard is being chased by Dodd, Leonard's window is intact, broken, and intact in successive scenes (before it is shot out by Dodd shortly thereafter).
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Dodd pulls his red vehicle into view after Leonard turns off the road to see what he was harassing him about, the camera crew is reflected on the side as the truck moves from the right side of the frame to the left.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When Leonard is sitting in his pick-up writing down Teddy's license number, he writes "FACT 6" without checking how many other facts there are first.
  
  
• Continuity: Teddy's car's license plate changes throughout the movie. The first time we're able to see it (after Leonard and he leave Dodd's apartment), it reads SG13 71U. Towards the end, after Leonard kills Jimmy, it reads SG13 7IU, which is what Leonard reads it as every time he mentions it. Tattooed on his thigh, it reads SG13 71U, and on the vehicle title Natalie provides for him, it reads SG13 7IU. This, of course, is likely an intentional mistake to reflect Leonard's unstable state of mind.
  
  
• Plot holes: Natalie apparently rides home from the bar with Leonard, yet her car is already home.
  
  
• Factual errors: Lenny claims that the doctors tell him that what Sammy Jankis (and Lenny as well, supposedly) potentially has is called "anterial grade memory loss" or "short term memory loss". NEITHER term is correct. He suffers from an inability to transfer short term memory into long term memory, which is known as "anterograde amnesia". (As opposed to retrograde amnesia, where you lose long term memories and is the kind we are usually referring to when we say 'amnesia') The word "anterial" does not even exist in the English language and is not a real disorder.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): After fleeing Dodd, while driving to the hotel, Leonard is reading the description that Natalie wrote down for him. You hear him 'thinking' what she's written down. He 'says' that Dodd is staying at the Mountcrest Inn, yet it is written as the Monterest Inn.
  
  
• Continuity: Natalie's handwriting is different in each of its appearances. The writing on the Ferdy's Bar coaster switches between print and cursive, and the invitation to the City Grill is in another kind of print. However, this could be another demonstration of the instability of Leonard's memory.
  
  
• Continuity: In a flashback we see Leonard getting up from bed because he hears sounds from the bathroom. Before he goes into the closet to get the gun he looks out of the room and we get a look at a rather well lit hallway. After he comes out of the closet the hallway has changed drastically. The handrail/banister is totally different, the lighting in the hallway and opposing room is different, the distance between the two opposing doors is different, the painting between the doors is different and the light switch between the doors is gone. Also the mirror on the wall next to the closet has changed from square with a rounded top to octagonal. It's obviously two different rooms.
  
  
• Continuity: At the end of the flashback where he sustains the injury Leonard seems to fall directly down to the floor after being attacked. His body should then be lying the same way as his wife's. However he lands on the floor with his body facing the opposite way.
  
  
• Continuity: In the black/white parts Leonard is staying in room 21 (as seen on the key). In one of the shots he looks out the window and we see the door to room 304. In the clip it is at the same height as the room Leonard is looking out of, but when he moves into that room he has to go down the stairs to get to the reception and in doing so passes room 21.
  
  
• Continuity: In the Jaguar Teddy gives Leonard the address of the Discount Inn. Teddy met Leonard at this motel earlier and therefore knows that he is already staying there. Leonard did not check out when they left and should therefore have both a picture and the key to room 21 in his possession.
  
  
• Continuity: In the scene where Dodd first comes after Leonard and chases him, his red SUV blocks in Leonard's Jaguar from behind. However, in the next chronological scene (when Leonard gets back to his car and drives away), Dodd's SUV is no longer blocking him in.
  
  
• Continuity: When Lenny meets Natalie in the Café and remembers his wife there is a shot of her opening her eyes. If this is played backwards it looks very much like she is going into a coma just like Sammy's wife. At the same moment Lenny is saying (in the voice over): "...and how much you hate the person who took them away.", and is technically speaking of himself in that moment.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Possibly deliberate: A shot shows Teddy's Driver License with its expiry date clearly visible: 02/29/01. But the year 2001 is no leap year, thus there is no 29th day in February.
  
  
• Continuity: The sky on the photograph Leonard takes of the hotel sign does not equal the sky at the moment he taking the picture.
  
  
• Continuity: The photograph that Natalie has in her apartment shows Larry once with, and the next time without, his mustache.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Natalie's handwriting on the coaster Lenny finds in his pocket changes.
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: Leonard has a picture of his Ford Truck when he leaves the Discount Inn the first time. This photo is only shown once, when Teddy is pulling up to the abandoned building at the end of the movie. However, in the truck, Leonard burns 2 photographs; the photographs of Jimmy's body and of him pointing to the bare spot on his chest. Therefore, Leonard should still have the photograph of his old truck, but it has somehow disappeared.
  
  

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