An affair to forget

Rating: Null/10 (28 March 2004)

Ah, Valentine's Day! For lovers, it's wonderful. But if you're not in a relationship, or your relationship has gone sour, February 14 is the saddest day of the year.
That's the first lesson of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", and it is a truism, a bromide, a trite and hackneyed notion. Love hurts ... What a concept?
That's just one of the reasons I found this film, um, forgettable. Oh, technically, it's mildly interesting for its disjointed storytelling and the neat way objects fade or quickly disappear from view. And Kate Winslet is certainly quirky as Clementine, erstwhile girlfriend to Joel (Jim Carrey). But the rest of the cast are largely wasted, and this is not the breakthrough dramatic role for Carrey that it was hyped to be.
It isn't until the final reel that we clue in to what might be the moral of the film: Even if our memories were erased, we would still gravitate to the same person all over again. In other words, some people are meant to be together.
The film quotes Friedrich Nietzsche (not once, but twice): "Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders." Does this mean that we learn from our mistakes? Apparently not. Both Joel and Clementine, and Howard and Mary, make the same mistakes all over again. At least Clementine is honest about being "just a f***ed-up person looking for her peace of mind".
But if the message of "Eternal Sunshine" is that we are doomed to go on f***ing up, even when the slate is wiped clean and we are given a second chance, then -- with the film as with life -- why bother?
"Eternal Sunshine" is full of truisms, it seems. Yet it misses the truest and saddest reality of all. You don't need the services of Lacuna Inc. to make your memories go away. Time does that for free.