Memory

Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard star in this penetrating psychological drama about two apparent strangers in New York City whose fateful encounter one night spins both of their lives in profoundly new directions. Sylvia (Chastain) is a single mother, 13 years sober and still reeling from a traumatic incident that she can’t forget, while Saul (Sarsgaard), suffering from early onset dementia, struggles to live an autonomous life. Can these two damaged souls find salvation?

ChicagoIFF award-winner Michel Franco, director of such acclaimed films as Sundown, New Order, and After Lucia, returns to the Festival with his most compassionate film. Though told in his precise and assured filmmaking style, he allows Chastain and Sarsgaard to fully embody the anguish of their characters–and the troubling complexities and tentative promise of their relationship. Winner of a Best Actor Prize at the Venice Film Festival for Sargaard’s subtle performance, Franco’s latest is a trenchant story of suffering and recovery–and memory itself and the ways it defines us.

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