Frustrating, because the desperate desire to be 'quirky' threatens to forestall interesting exploration, just like "BJM"... (SPOILERS!)

Rating: 7/10 (28 July 2004)

There's some beautifully affecting and underplayed romance in "Eternal Sunshine" that at times is so poignant and realistic in its approach it feels a wonderfully fresh antidote to the sanitized gloss that Hollywood usually turns out. A romantic movie for those who dislike 'conventional' romantic movies, then?
Well, no. Oftentimes the simplest moments are the most touching ones, and everybody here is so concerned with convoluting the journey at times that the real moments of empathy sometimes wind up getting lost. It's a shame that an idea so full of possibility just goes nuts with that very quality, adding more complex elements that aren't needed, primarily to appease a more 'highbrow' audience. I found Kauffman's earlier film "Being John Malkovitch" suffered from much the same problem as far as I was concerned; an ingenious central concept, the effect of which emerged diluted because of far too much unnecessary 'weirdness'. A case of Kauffman and co. gilding the lily, if you will, which unfortunately is in evidence again here.
"Eternal Sunshine" hit a bullseye when it just concentrated solely on exploring the pain of loss. Despairingly, though, it almost turned into a bad quasi-thriller with the advent of stuff about Joel and Clementine preserving old memories by artificially recreating new ones, and other such wandering into artificial realities. I understood the musing that after the erasure process complications may arise from people still being inexorably drawn to each other without remembering why; ponder this, though: Did such a large portion of the movie REALLY need to be hijacked by such extraneous detail taking up space? The net result of such a course as far as I could see was the emotional 'heart' of the movie nearly being allowed to wither away. This is a more lamented loss than in the case of "Being John Malkovitch", purely because there's MORE of it in this instance! The 'nuts and bolts' that once held Clementine and Joel's relationship together are pitifully neglected, on occasion.
The positive moments for me, though, are the ones borne of 'tenderness'. The film manages the unique trick of being at once achingly personal at times, yet oddly universal, as well. Memories are those which are private to us, but we have the facility to share them with others, too. It's the completely charming cinematic couple of Clementine and Joel that made me root for love as an 'ideal' and always want to keep watching. In particular, I'm now convinced that it would be a betrayal of Carrey's talents if he were to return to the arena of slapstick comedy without such strong central stories underpinning him. Now, all he (and Kauffman ESPECIALLY!) need to do is find a balance and stay on the right side of 'idiosyncratic', because "Sunshine" sees them veering away on unnecessary tangents far too often for my liking. (7/10 or ***/***** by 'profile' rating standards)