2021 · drama · memory · family
Memory Box
Directed by Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige1h 37m2021
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, from 13 to 18 years old, sent from Beirut to her best friend who left for Paris to escape the civil war. 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.
Our read: Memory Box (2021) reads as a sombre, kinetic, inventive drama · memory · family entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook.
Sombre, kinetic, measured drama / memory, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured.
- sombre
- brisk
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Availability in the UK · via JustWatch
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How Memory Box feels to watch.
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What watching it is actually like.
“You want an intimate mother-daughter story unpacking war memories through old letters and photos.”
Skip it tonight — Skip if heavy themes of loss, war trauma and family secrets feel too heavy tonight.
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