The Memory Keeper (Falsehood) Ending Explained And Movie Recap: What Happens In The Post Credit Scene? 

Governments always  love to control things like natural resources, law and order, borders, public utilities, education, taxation, and just about anything else that gives them leverage over people’s lives. Well, Ethan Hickey’s slow burn dystopian thriller “The Memory Keeper (also titled Falsehood)” takes us to a world where memories are controlled by the government, and is no less valuable than money itself. The film sets you up real nice with a very interesting premise, but as it goes on, the atmospheric cinematography and the central mystery eventually get pretty boring. The final payoff isn’t as great as it was promised to be either, as we only see other people experiencing and talking about “humanity’s oldest memory.” As moving and disturbing as it’s supposed to be, we never really get to see what all the fuss is about. All in all, I personally found the film to be a huge letdown, but it’s bound to leave you with plenty of questions. Lucky for you, I have nothing better to do than go over all the theories with you.

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the film?

We are fed some information about how in the year 2066, the government started exploring every single memory of our species, and they have the tech to go inside your head and do anything they wish to your memories. They might extract it, delete specific bits, or order a complete memory wipeout on you, although I’m struggling to make sense of how that works. However, the crown jewel of the memories is the oldest memory of humanity, which is also called “The Memory of Falsehood.” Now one might wonder, just like I am, how did we access the oldest memory of humanity, since nobody is alive to extract that memory from. However, the President of the United States decided to safeguard The Memory of Falsehood, like they usually do with anything valuable, and a public servant would be chosen to protect it, they’re known as the memory keeper. We then meet Elizeus Carrier, the chief of Department of Memory, raiding a meeting between a member of the Alliance and an old man called Mr. Harvey. The Alliance is after a specific memory from the most infamous day of mankind, which is somehow related to a Bible verse. However, Elizeus orders a complete memory wipe for Harvey, and before he goes through it, Harvey says he knew Elizeus’ mom, a former memory keeper who was assassinated. Surprisingly enough, the current memory keeper is also killed soon after, while delivering a speech in a University. Even though the Memory of Falsehood remains safe, it doesn’t have a keeper, and the killer is still on the loose. 

Why does Marie hate the president? 

Elizeus meets Tariq, an analyst who deciphers if a memory is authentic or forged. Tariq points out that no real memory can be precise, as none of us remember the exact same picture we saw or experienced. We might remember the colours wrong, or the size of the place itself, and the memory Elizeus brought from Harvey, is a forgery. Meanwhile, President David calls Elizeus for a meeting only to tell him that he shouldn’t be involved in the investigation of the keeper’s assassination. The President thinks Elizeus is still hung up on his mom’s death, so it’s better if he stays out of it. On the other hand, Elizeus’ sister, Marie, is running for the presidential election, and she’s managed to rally the religious population behind her. We see her blaming President David for appointing her mother as a memory keeper and how he let her die. Marie also promises to reveal the Memory of Falsehood to the world, which also has a religious angle, since they believe the Memory of Falsehood explains the origins of humanity. 

Why did the President kill Elizeus’ mother? 

Elizeus keeps investigating keeper Morrison’s death off the record. He visits a colleague named Sid, who’s nervous as hell, and Elizeus understands that he’s working with the Alliance. Sid is also an employee of the Department of Memory, and he sneakily erases some official files permanently before Elizeus confronts him with the truth. When Elizeus tries arresting him, Sid attacks him with a knife, and Elizeus has no option but to kill him. But the people who work for the Alliance have a ticker implant inside the brain, and if anybody tries to extract their memory from them or they die otherwise, the ticker explodes and erases all the memories. So when Elizeus reports to his superior, McCarthy, he’s furious that Elizeus is not only disobeying the orders of the department, but also killing people in the process. But Elizeus tracks down Harvey once again, and the memory he was selling to the Alliance proves to be much more valuable than we thought. It’s a memory from Elizeus’ mother, the day before she died. Apparently, she saw the Memory of Falsehood, and after experiencing it, she knew that she wouldn’t survive for long. Harvey tells Elizeus that she wanted to broadcast it to the public, and when Elizeus confronts President David, he confesses that he was the one who had to order the hit on his mother. She showed the Memory of Falsehood to David as well, and the President tells Elizeus that this memory shouldn’t be seen by anyone, let alone the public. We can tell it’s not the Garden of Eden, as David claims if the Memory of Falsehood is revealed, millions of people would just kill themselves, and society will collapse so hard that they’ll be back in stone age in no time. Elizeus’ mother also sent an astronaut named Sanderson out in the space to look for the creators of humans, but the government lied to the public about this mission, making the people believe he’s going to Mars. Now everyone knows that Sanderson never came back, but only President David knows that the mission he’s on could take many more years than originally planned. 

Meanwhile, Marie beats David in the elections, and a large group of protestors storm Washington to oppose David’s reign as president. To make things worse, Elizeus’ teenage daughter, Noor, is fascinated by her aunt’s antiques, and she’s also sold on the whole religious propaganda Marie is preaching. As Marie addresses the nation after the elections, she also reveals the Memory of Falsehood, but it’s as fake as it can be. This version shows Eve plucking the forbidden apple, and the general population are overwhelmed with joy and ecstasy. Marie also tells the nation that this golden memory has been tainted by the name previous presidents gave it, so she renames the day she was elected and unveiled the memory the Day of Origins. 

Why is Tariq killed?

Tariq tries to tell Elizeus that he’s been gathering evidence against his sister, the new president-elect, to prove that she forged the Memory of Falsehood. He is obviously quite shaken and afraid, but Elizeus just shakes him off and asks him to meet on the next day, which is a very out of character thing for him. Tariq claims that there’s somebody inside the government who might help them, but when Elizeus just refuses to give him the time he needs, Tariq leaves, and gets murdered moments later. As his friend is getting killed, Elizeus is having dinner with Marie and Noor. When Noor says she wants to be like Marie, Elizeus is taken aback, as it’s clear he doesn’t see eye to eye with his sister.

Later, when Elizeus finds out about his friend’s death, he goes to Tariq’s office to remember him. As he takes one of his cigars to light, Elizeus notices that the cigars are stuffed with papers and documents. On his way out, Senator Freeman, who was in touch with Tariq, confronts Elizeus. Freeman already knows that if anything happens to Tariq, Elizeus is the guy she should approach, but he avoids talking to her. Elizeus goes to talk to McCarthy once again, and he confesses that Marie is lying to the world, since he’s seen the actual Memory of Falsehood himself, thanks to President David. But McCarthy refuses to entertain Elizeus, as he believes the world and its people are better off knowing a pleasant lie rather than the truth. 

What did Marie do to her brother? 

After gathering a lot of official statements, evidence, and testimonies, Elizeus has more than enough evidence to bring Marie down. Elizeus is also certain that Marie might be involved in Tariq’s killing, since the Presidents do take the extra measures to have full control over the memory tech. He has the actual vial which contains the Memory of Falsehood, and there’s nothing stopping Elizeus except his own boss. When Elizeus returns home, he gets to know that Noor and her friends bullied and beat up a kid because he wasn’t religious enough. Marie is willingly creating a world where there’s little space for tolerance, and religious extremism is not frowned upon. But despite everything, when Elizeus is asked to testify against the President in Congress, he changes his mind and decides to let Marie be. He’s realised that this world doesn’t deserve the truth, and maybe he shouldn’t risk his and his daughter’s life. Elizeus asked McCarthy to bring Noor to a secret spot, and maybe he was planning to leave the country for good. But little did he know that his sister had already ordered a hit on him. When Marie finds out that Elizeus didn’t go against her, she tries to cancel the order, but it’s too late. Just like that, Elizeus is gone, and McCarthy brings Noor only to find out that Elizeus has disappeared. Marie can’t possibly handle the guilt of killing her brother, who’s been nothing but good to her since they were little, so she specifically deletes her own memory of making him disappear. 

What happens in the post credit scene? 

At the end of the film, we see Marie addressing the nation about the disappearance of her brother, and his poor daughter thinks that Elizeus ran away by his own will. Senator Freeman also meets Marie and tells her that her committee would go after Elizeus legally if he ever returns, since he jeopardised their whole case by the false testimony. Marie doesn’t care, as she’s more concerned with what to do with the real Memory of Falsehood, which she acquired from Elizeus after he was killed. She looks up at her mother’s portrait, asks her if she really wanted to show this to people, before mixing the memory with her whiskey and gulping it down. The President of the United States decides that the best way to dispose the Memory of Falsehood is to drink it, I’m not making it up. 

However, in the post credits, a spaceship returns to Earth, and it’s Sanderson, the astronaut President David talked about. Sanderson was supposedly looking for humanity’s creators, and when he returns, although we never see him, he hasn’t aged at all. The man has been out in the space for decades, only to return looking the same way he did when he left. Marie claims that she knew how he looked, and she’s obviously pretty shaken up about how to handle this guy who’s appeared out of nowhere. If Sanderson actually managed to find the creators, that revelation will squash Marie’s version of the Memory of Falsehood, and prove that God isn’t real. You can’t possibly think that Sanderson was just out in space and he didn’t encounter some special people, because if he didn’t, he’d have aged like a normal human being. So I think it’s pretty self explanatory that the man came across some sweet futuristic tech from the aliens, and in that case, he definitely can expose Marie for lying to her people. There’s also a possibility that the Creators of humanity existed in the original Memory of Falsehood, and maybe that was the reason everyone who saw it was so disturbed. Marie most likely didn’t care to see it for herself, since we know she’d rather be in denial and lie than accept any truth. Whatever it might be, Marie’s days as President won’t be comfortable, as Sanderson returning to Earth threatens her the most. 

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