San Francisco IndieFest 2025 Coverage
Memorizing Alison review
A slowly unraveled mystery that marches to the beat of its own drum.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Memorizing Alison
Directed by J.P. Allen
Written by J.P. Allen
Starring Allison Ewing, J.P. Allen, Chopper Bernet, Janet Lynn Saunders, Joe Bowden, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart and Joe Estlack
Memorizing Alison Review
Whatever happened…has already happened. That’s the central issue facing investigative movies. An event that has already occurred can’t be built up to. There’s no growing suspense over what might happen. We already know. What we don’t know, and what investigative mysteries hope we’ll be interested in, is why it happened. Memorizing Alison doesn’t go about revealing that information in a way I’ve seen before. But it knows that building interest in its characters is the best way to draw interest to its revelations.
Alison (Allison Ewing) died in a hit and run accident. That’s what the report says. Chris (J.P. Allen), whose relationship with Alison is explored in detail during flashbacks, can’t let go of the feeling that something isn’t adding up. His attempts to investigate how and why this happened lead him down a rabbit hole of memories and reconnections.
The first thing that strikes you about Memorizing Alison is how it feels. It doesn’t feel like most mysteries do. It doesn’t look like them either…but we’ll get to that in a moment. The film’s examination of memory gives it the feeling of something more personal and dramatic than the plot summary would call to mind. Chris’s personal journey…and the memories we experience in taking it with him…can almost make you forget that there is a mystery in need of solving.
Chris never forgets, however. He’s driven to discover everything he can about each aspect of the story he can recall. This leads him to discussions with the people close to Alison…her compassionate sister, a dangerous brother, a friend in common…that begin to reveal clues that Chris’s instincts are correct. Something is off about this hit and run. Memorizing Alison follows Chris’s investigation to its conclusion…providing definitive answers to his growing list of questions. But the story never feels as much about resolving the mystery as it does revealing who these people are. It lends a depth to the story that isn’t always a part of the genre.
I mentioned that Memorizing Alison doesn’t look like most movies…and that’s due to its camera’s interest in providing memorable images instead of a straightforward narrative lens. The picture rarely centers on what you’d expect. Finding more interesting ways to convey the feeling of a scene through distance or angles or, sometimes, just shooting something else entirely. It’s often fascinating to look at. Sometimes you feel like a fly on the wall…other times you’re right in the middle of a flashback.
Those flashbacks begin to overpower the story in the latter stages of Memorizing Alison. Alison becomes the central character in flesh instead of in memory. We learn more about Alison…and her relationship with Chris. The closer Chris gets to unraveling the mystery of what happened to Alison…the more the movie gives her the story back. Uncovering truths and unlocking the memories that go with them. Allison Ewing is terrific as the doomed Alison…dealing with more ups and downs than a seemingly random hit and run accident would indicate. Because, as Chris suspects, nothing that important is that simple.
Where most mysteries build to climactic showdowns and dangerous encounters…Memorizing Alison (though it does contain one such scene) focuses on digging deeper into its now absent titular character. We understand her fears…we watch her final days…and, inevitably, we learn the truth. A truth that feels like the appropriate payoff to the way in which Memorizing Alison has approached its subject from the start.
With a unique style, clever structure and a consistently deepening understanding of who Alison is, and what ultimately happened to her, Memorizing Alison finds the right approach to its personal mystery.
Scare Value
Memorizing Alison doesn’t unfold like most investigative mystery stories. It’s a very personal examination of a man struggling with his memories looking into the disappearance of someone he loved. Flashbacks fill in a lot of character work…so much that you might, at times, forget there is even a mystery to solve at all. Memorizing Alison doesn’t forget. It delivers a proper conclusion with answers to the questions you might struggle to remember having in the first place.
