Memory Box

2021

1h 42m

Drama

List

93%

29 Reviews

Tomatometer

On Christmas Eve in Montreal, Alex and her mother Maia receive a package in the mail. Inside are the countless notebooks, cassettes and photographs that Maia, between the ages of 13 and 18, sent from Beirut to her best friend who had left for Paris to escape the war. Maia refuses to open this Pandora’s box. Alex, on the other hand, is irresistibly attracted to these testimonies of an unknown past and discovers, between fantasy and reality, her mother’s tumultuous adolescence, her first love and the murderous war that rages, bringing to the surface well-kept secrets. With these revelations, Alex will convince her mother to return to Lebanon, after 25 years of exile, to face the ghosts of her past.

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Critics Consensus

Vibrantly filmed and finely detailed, Memory Box is an engaging depiction of one woman's reckoning with her past.

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Jude Dry

indieWire

Artists do not need science to tell them what they feel in their bones, and film is a powerful tool to illustrate the ephemeral memories one stores in the body.

Rated: B

Aug 8, 2022

Full Review

Devika Girish

New York Times

Memories, whether human or technological, have their limits. But in sharing them, as “Memory Box” movingly demonstrates, we can discover them anew.

Aug 4, 2022

Full Review

Simran Hans

Observer (UK)

Teenage girls are taken seriously in Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige's lively coming-of-age drama.

Rated: 4/5

Jan 23, 2022

Full Review

Erick Estrada

Cinegarage

Embraces with subtlety themes such as inclusion, tolerance and acceptance. [Full review in Spanish]

Sep 15, 2022

Full Review

Jared Mobarak

Jaredmobarak.com

Credit the filmmakers for going to those darker places with the impossibility of living through so much death and destruction. And for deciding that letting that pain out and realizing they don't have to battle it alone can lead to happy endings too.

Rated: 7/10

Aug 5, 2022

Full Review

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Hammer to Nail

The result is a moving cinematic treatise on identity and its reconstruction, buoyed by fine performances all around, proving that out of pain can come a salve to heal it.

Aug 5, 2022

Full Review

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Audience Member

A refreshing new way of storytelling based on personal archives, this film is an absolute MUST SEE. The storyline, the shots, the creative and artistic twist to this film makes it one to remember!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/15/23

Full Review

brent m

When we think we know someone but subsequently find out we don't know that individual at all, the impact can be surprising, if not disillusioning, especially when it involves someone close, like a family member. That's the experience of Alex (Paloma Vauthier), a young Canadian woman of Lebanese descent, who discovers that her mother, Maia (Rim Turki), is not the person she thought she was. It's a revelation that comes about when Maia receives a package filled with memorabilia from her upbringing in Beirut during the 1980s Lebanese Civil War, a time of devastating trauma mixed with a wondrous coming of age experience. Maia is not anxious to review the contents of the box, despite the many questions posed by Alex regarding the stockpile of notebooks, photos and cassette tapes contained therein. She even goes so far as to forbid Alex from reviewing the materials or asking about them, an order that's promptly and secretively ignored. By reading the journals, looking at the pictures and listening to the recordings, she discovers things about her mother's younger self (Manal Issa) that she never knew – tragedies she experienced, passions she possessed but has since abandoned, secrets about her extended family and loves lost – events that changed Maia drastically from the person she used to be in her youth. And, when Maia learns that Alex has been clandestinely perusing these materials, it sets up a confrontation, a dialogue and a metamorphosis that neither of them previously saw coming. In their fourth narrative collaboration, directors Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige have produced an engaging film that captivates throughout, capably nurturing the level of suspense and zapping viewers with carefully crafted, intensely moving disclosures, followed by moments of heartbreak, rebirth and encouragement. Despite a slight tendency to drag a bit toward the end of the first hour, "Memory Box" deservedly earns the interest it garners and the emotions it evokes across a wide spectrum of feelings, all told through a story that takes place during a period in history that has previously received precious little cinematic attention. This one is well worth a watch.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

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Joana Hadjithomas

Director

Khalil Joreige

Director

Rim Turkhi

Maia (adult)

Manal Issa

Maia (young)

Paloma Vauthier

Alex

Jade Charbonneau

Actor

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Synopsis

On Christmas Eve in Montreal, Alex and her mother Maia receive a package in the mail. Inside are the countless notebooks, cassettes and photographs that Maia, between the ages of 13 and 18, sent from Beirut to her best friend who had left for Paris to escape the war. Maia refuses to open this Pandora’s box. Alex, on the other hand, is irresistibly attracted to these testimonies of an unknown past and discovers, between fantasy and reality, her mother’s tumultuous adolescence, her first love and the murderous war that rages, bringing to the surface well-kept secrets. With these revelations, Alex will convince her mother to return to Lebanon, after 25 years of exile, to face the ghosts of her past.

Director: Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige
Screenwriter: Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige, Gaëlle Macé
Production Co: Super Ecran, Ginger Beirut Production, TV5 MONDE, micro_scope, Centre National du Cinéma et de L'image Animée, Téléfilm Canada, Abbout Productions, Haut et Court, Société de Développement des Entreprises Culturelles (SODEC)
Genre: Drama
Original Language: French (France)
Runtime: 1h 42m
Sound Mix: Dolby
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)