Kaufman dreams on

Rating: Null/10 (13 June 2004)

Moviemakers have often been fascinated by memory - think of "Total Recall" or "Memento" - and the medium lends itself well to the realisation of what are above all visual recollections and reconstructions. Here acclaimed scriptwriter Charlie Kaufman displays more of the inventiveness than was so successfully on show in "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation". This time, though, the director is not Spike Jonze, but Michel Gondry, a maker of music videos and commercials, turning his hand for the first time to a full-length feature. In fact, the film often feels like a video, with a grainy and jerky - almost dreamlike - look.
The essence of Kaufman's story is the attempt by two unlikely and very different characters to erase the memories of their less than idyllic relationship. Jim Carrie plays withdrawn and melancholic Joel in the most restrained, even rather sad, performance that we have ever seen this from this usually manic comic, while Kate Winslet is totally convincing as Clementine, a cheery and colourful, but wild and impulsive, personality who infuses herself into his life and his heart. When each in turn wishes to blank out the memory of the other, a weird company appropriately called Lacuna offers to do the deed.
In an original romantic comedy where one thinks and smiles more than laughs, we are invited to value memories, however uncomfortable or even painful, as part of our experience and identity and possibly capable of being revisited and refashioned. It's all rather indulgent and at times esoteric, but then this is Charlie Kaufman. One wonders how long he can perform these mind tricks before he attempts a more conventional narrative but, in the meanwhile, this a film to be savoured at least once and preferably twice.

Footnote: The erudite title comes from a poem by Alexander Pope called "Epistle Of Eloïsa To Abelard": "How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot: Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted and each wish resign'd."