Leonard is our detective, and while he suffers from a crippling ailment, he should still be able to solve the case, but the film slowly reveals that what Leonard's working towards isn't justice or even vengeance, but clinging to the scraps of an identity. The figure of Leonard Shelby-a man who believes he's in control only to learn that his control was an illusion-recurs in Nolan's filmography, but it works particularly well in Memento because of how Nolan is able to upend expectations of the noir genre. In the end he learns (before he forgets again) that his wife survived the attack and that she committed suicide by having Leonard give her too much insulin. He thinks that his Polaroids and tattoos are hard evidence, but their just as fallible as memory. Leonard clings to this shred of control he believes he has, but that control is an illusion. Instead, everyone he meets uses him including corrupt cop Teddy ( Joe Pantoliano), vindictive bartender Natalie ( Carrie-Anne Moss), and even Burt, the hotel desk clerk. He has purposefully been creating a mystery he can never solve because he's already solved it, but forgotten that he already achieved his vengeance. But as the story unfolds, the reveal isn't the true culprit but to show that Leonard is chasing his own ghost. So Leonard convinces himself that through conditioning, he can be disciplined enough to find vengeance. Leonard has been chasing the guy who did it, but his search is complicated by the fact that he can't make new memories since the accident. The story follows Shelby, who has a short-term memory loss following a break-in at his house that gave him his 'condition' and also his wife was raped and murdered.

Simulacra 2 imdb