Duke Johnson’s The Actor follows André Holland as Paul, a man who wakes up in a hospital one day with no memory of who he is or how he got there. The staff inform him he’s an actor; the ID in his wallet lists his home address as 125 Grove St. in New York City; and the cop who runs him out of town claims he’s an adulterer. 

But that’s all Paul has to go on as he uses the last of his cash to catch a train in the vague direction of New York. (And he’s only got enough to go a few towns over, still stuck miles away in the midwest.) Soon he realizes his amnesia isn’t just affecting the memories of his past, but his ability to remember new information, too. The film follows Paul’s attempts to navigate his new world, learn about his past, and find his way home.

Memory loss and amnesia crop up periodically in media. But The Actor isn’t a soapy amnesiac melodrama, nor is it a mystery-thriller in the vein of Memento. Instead, The Actor is a sort of dreamy, meandering experience, feeling more like a character study than anything else (to varying degrees of success).

Johnson leans into some experimental cinematography here, which often takes cues from the theatre stage. Scenes literally fade into empty black voids as Paul slips from one place to another; a hazy glow around a streetlight gives the impression of a spotlight. Most interestingly, the film embraces a sort of “theatre troupe” acting approach, where actors like Asim Chaudhry, Toby Jones, Joe Cole, and Tracey Ullman appear as multiple different characters throughout the story. 

The story of The Actor easily segments into three parts. In the first, Paul wakes to discover his memory loss and gets a job in a small town, hoping to save enough money to return home. While there, he meets and falls for Edna (Gemma Chan). But Paul ultimately decides to leave Edna to travel to New York, where he hopes to uncover who he truly is. The middle of the film follows Paul in New York, trying to slip back into his old life and recover his memories. Finally, Paul decides to cut ties with the old him he still can’t really remember, and return to his love Edna.

The opening and closing segments of this story prove much more effective and entertaining than the middle. Early on in The Actor, you’re drawn in by the mystery of Paul’s missing memories and the tragedy of his situation. You want to see how he manages to navigate his new world, and what he can figure out about his past. 

Unfortunately, when Paul gets to New York, the film starts to drag and feel directionless. Too often it feels like Paul isn’t doing anything to look into his past or do any self-reflection and discovery; he’s just reacting to life as it happens. Paul doesn’t understand his past, and neither do we, but ultimately it feels like this just doesn’t matter. With Paul just drifting through life and going through the motions, there aren’t really any stakes to the amnesia. (Besides a few awkward interactions, anyway.) 

When Paul decides to return to Edna, The Actor gets back on track for its third act. Bringing back the love story – and tying that to both Paul taking real charge of his life again, and to the challenges of his memory loss – make for a slightly more compelling finale.

Holland does great work here as Paul, and imbues his performance with a lot of nuanced emotion. As a director, Johnson clearly has some big ideas here, but the translation to the screen feels uneven. The Actor shoots for a sort of experimental, dreamlike character piece, but it’s not the best at delivering the depth needed to make that work. It feels like a film that wants to have something to say about identity and new beginnings, but gets lost along the way. You know how dreams are most interesting to the person actually dreaming them? The Actor feels a bit like being told about someone else’s dream: interesting enough to draw you in initially, but ultimately lacking that spark that makes it mean something more.

The Actor releases in limited theaters March 14.