Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 1983

The Contenders:

Betrayal
The Dresser
Educating Rita
Reuben, Reuben
Terms of Endearment (winner)

A Different Kind of Memento

Films: Betrayal
Format: Internet video on the new internet machine.

When Memento came out, a lot of the film world was taken with the idea that the story was told in reverse. The appropriately named Irreversible was told the same way, and again audiences wondered at the guts of telling a story this way. And here we have the little-known Betrayal from 1983. This movie is based on a Harold Pinter play of the same name and, as you’ve probably guessed, tells the story in reverse order.

So why is this forgotten as a film that tells the story this way? It might because while it is filled with the sort of pathos and drama that we expect from a Pinter play, it doesn’t have the same sort of gut punch of Memento or the pure horror of parts of Irreversible. Instead, it’s the story of an affair told from years after the affair has ended, moving backwards in time to the end of the affair, the reveal of the affair to one of the spouses, shared afternoons, and tentative beginnings. It’s an interesting way to tell the story and seems initially to be more than simply a narrative trick. It does, however, require the viewer to pay close attention. We know where the affair is going because we’re seeing it in reverse. We need to remember that frequently what we know is not known by all of the characters on the screen.