Memento The Movie

I feel that the movie was a very good adaptation of the story. Although they take plenty of liberties with the general plot and actions, it is a pretty general story that allows the changes without destroying the original idea. The main idea remains the same, a man who is no longer able to make new memories is looking for the man who murdered his wife. This man is out for revenge and he plans on killing the person who is responsible. However after the task that he has set for himself is accomplished, he does not remember it.
The movie is different from the story in many ways. The man in the movie has become a killer for many, he is used by people who are able to gain his trust and convince him to kill for them, and he is presented as allowing this to happen to himself because he is not able to give up his quest for revenge. This is not explicit in the story, although it is one interpretation of the mysterious letters to himself that perhaps someone is writing them to him to get him to do something for them. The movie also focuses on a time after the original revenge death has already taken place, while the story seems to begin with his first attempt at gaining his revenge. He has just escaped from the hospital and he is leading himself to the man that is responsible for his wife's murder.
The most interesting difference between the two stories is the idea of Sammy. This is not mentioned in the story at all, however it is a very important part of the movie. Sammy is a man that the main character investigated before his incident. Sammy was unable to create new memories, and this eventually led to him killing his wife by giving her to many insulin shots. The movie tells us that there is no Sammy, that this is a fictional character made up by the main character to forget that it really happened to him. This means that his wife did not die in the attack, but was not able to live with him in the condition that he was in, and she found a way to commit suicide.