Dementia-stricken boy meets recovering alcoholic girl.

Michel Franco’s “Memory” is a small portrait on two people who have their struggles in life, and yet, form a connection that becomes polarized by those around them. You have Jessica Chastain and Peter Saragaard perfectly cast in the leading roles, but you also have aspects of their story that’s either understandable or unforgivable. It all depends on what happened in their lives, and who could have been involved.

Let me clarify.

Chastain plays a recovering alcoholic, single mother, and social worker named Sylvia, whose sister Olivia (Merritt Wever) suggests she attends her high school reunion, and is followed home by another alumni named Saul (Saragaard). The next morning, she finds him sleeping on some tires outside her apartment with a garbage bag for a blanket. So, she asks for his phone, and calls his brother and caregiver Isaac (Josh Charles) to pick him up.

Now, Saul isn’t a stalker, but rather he suffers from dementia. He doesn’t remember her name, nor the reason why he followed her home from the party. But she remembers that he was one of the guys sexually abused her in her teens. So she tells him: “You deserve to be the way that you are.”

Isaac’s daughter Sara (Elsie Fisher) asks Sylvia to be Saul’s caregiver during the day while he works, and given her past, she doesn’t feel like she should. But then, Sylvia realizes Saul wasn’t one of her attackers, and agrees to help him get through the day.

Due to his memory, he can’t watch movies, but only does so Sylvia can watch them. If you leave the room, you have to pause the movie, because Saul won’t remember what happened in one scene. He wouldn’t even remember who is the real Agatha Christie villain in a murder mystery movie if he could try. So I won’t be giving him my business card for this website anytime soon.

And despite his condition, Saul and Sylvia begin a romantic connection. This becomes a great concern for Isaac, who suggests their relationship could be toxic, especially when she gives Saul her emergency contact number and when he leaves his house on his own.

In Sylvia’s family story, her daughter Anna (Brooke Timber) is in teen mode, and she has an estranged relationship her mother (Jessica Harper). They both meet for the first time at Aunt Olivia’s house, which would eventually set off some more turmoil regarding memories. So, it isn’t just Saul’s memory the movie is concerned about, but also Sylvia’s.

There has to be typical elements within the daughter, like how she wants to order pizza instead of what her mother made for dinner at one point, and how her old lady finds her joint in her bedroom. These things are too obligatory for my tastes. Okay, okay, so I don’t like “No pizza” lines of any kind in any movie or show. If I don’t like hearing certain things, I don’t like hearing them. So, let’s move on.

But I was marveled by the performances from Chastain and Sarsgaard, and by how Franco presents their characters with sincere emotions. The narrative of the film about their circumstances has more value and importance than what was presented a few months ago in “She Came to Me.” It doesn’t rely on last minute elements or sitcom material to tell an interesting connection, but rather life problems some of us can’t understand but acknowledge at least.

Memories can either be forgotten or altered, depending on the condition the person is in, and both these characters are reflections on that. After all, Sylvia is a recovering alcoholic, so things can happen within her memory banks. But we all want to understand these characters and what they’re going through or have gone through.

Now In Select Theaters and Expanding Everywhere January 4th.