Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia sent to her best friend from 1980's Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother's tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.... (Full plot summary below)
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Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia sent to her best friend from 1980's Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother's tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.
Leave your thoughts about Memory Box.
| IndieWireJude DryBlurring the lines between past and present, Memory Box floats in and out of two parallel stories, never quite allowing either one to take hold. As the focus shifts from daughter to mother, the audience is caught in the middle. Much like memory itself, the threads never fully coalesce until the very end. |
| The GuardianLeslie FelperinEdited with minute attentiveness, the film switches back and forth between time periods adroitly in a way that always moves the story forward, while the outstanding performances from the whole ensemble, especially the watchful Vauthier and the fierce Issa, anchor the film. |
| VarietyJay WeissbergThrough an ingenious blend of image and music, Memory Box opens channels that allow our own experience to empathetically blend with those of the characters in a mix of imagination and reality. |
| The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungAmong other things, the film is an extremely dense fusion of elements that make up our sense of time and memories, including collages of hundreds of old photos, grainy super 8 footage, notebooks, songs and music, sound bites and newspaper articles. |
| The Observer (UK)Simran HansHadjithomas and Joreige thoughtfully explore trauma while remaining joyful, animating Maia’s photos, which fizz, crackle and dance to life on screen. |
| The New York TimesDevika GirishThe relationship between mother and daughter is rather thinly etched — there’s a little too much going on in this ambitious, intergenerational film — but Hadjithomas and Joreige deftly use Maia’s archive to weave together past and present. |
| The Film StageOrla SmithMemory Box is at its strongest in its first half, when Alex steals objects from the box that she’s been forbidden to look at, and her imaginings about her mother’s youth are visualized on screen through mixed media animation. |
| Little White LiesSteph GreenDespite a prioritisation of visual effects over story, Memory Box makes a compelling case for chronicling the big and small parts of your life, if only to share with generations to come. |
| Screen DailyAllan HunterAs truths are shared, revelations uncovered and reunions achieved, Memory Box becomes a warming tale of truth and reconciliation. |
| EmpireSophie Monks KaufmanThe marriage of abstract existential themes, immersive, tactile images and dual timelines is always impressive but only occasionally moving. |
