A thoroughly absorbing and original work.

Rating: 8/10 (19 April 2005)

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett star in this unique film, as two people who meet and slowly fall in love. However the relationship is somewhat rocky, and slowly begins to deteriorate. After one particularly nasty row, Winslett decides to have Carrey erased from her memory.
Amazingly it turns out that there exists a procedure that allows her to do just that, even though everything else points to the film being set in the present day. The futuristic machines that facilitate Carrey and Winslett's memory loss seem somewhat out of place in this thoughtful drama about the pitfalls of relationships, and the film seems intent on enlightening us about how the memory-wiping technology works. Better they had glossed over this, and allowed it to remain a mystery.
The film also devotes some time to examining the lives of the people who carry out the procedure, who to be honest are pretty incidental to the main plot. These sections aren't particularly enlightening, as they just seem to mirror the problems that Carrey and Winslett are experiencing.
Carrey is a revelation in this film, showing that he is capable of far more than just energetic mugging in dubious comedy vehicles, and gets his career firmly back on track, while Winslett finally puts Titanic behind her, delivering an assured performance.
Overall this is a thoroughly absorbing and original work, which invokes bizarre technology, and is so bonkers at times that you occasionally forget that it's basically a simple film about relationships. It's superbly thought provoking, and only slightly marred by its tendency towards science fiction.