Following is Christopher Nolan’s first film and a worthy predecessor to the highly acclaimed Memento. Following, first of all, isn’t like most Hollywood movies. In fact, it’s not a Hollywood movie at all. Following is an independent, low-budget, 69 minute, black and white British film with no name actors. Actually, for the majority of the actors, including the two lead actors, this is the only film they’ve ever appeared in. They do well enough to convince us though, and thoroughly confuse us as well.

You got to give it to Following for its cleverness. For the first half of the movie, Following plays like a narrative documentary on burglary and then you discover there’s something more. In fact, it’s so clever that you don’t even realize it’s as clever as it is until the final stages of the film. And then you have to watch it again to see what you missed.

Following follows Bill (Jeremy Theobald), an unemployed loner who follows people around just because he finds them interesting. He then meets up with Cobb (Alex Haw), who introduces him with something similar. He burgles people just to see what they’re like, who they are, and what kind of lives they live – and to get some extra cash on the side. Bill joins his business, but soon finds himself in something of a pickle.

Following isn’t always easy to follow. The scenes aren’t exactly in chronological order. Basically, interspliced with the primary narrative are “flashforwards” that hint at the later events of the story and frankly, make it more difficult to figure out what’s going on. Despite the puzzle piece script, the sum of the film doesn’t surpass its cleverness and doesn’t seem to say anything really significant about anything. But the puzzle pieces do fit together in more ways than one and we finally realize that this really is no ordinary film.

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