Leonard's not lying to himself about his success or his ego. Nolan simply found a vehicle to make the lie one of the stars of the film. What gives the story its potency is that Memento recognizes we all lie to ourselves. 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 they're 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, yet he has 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. The story follows Shelby, who has short-term memory loss following a break-in at his house in which his wife was raped and murdered and a blow to the head that gave Shelby his "condition." 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.
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