Jaw-Droppingly Good

Rating: 10/10 (4 October 2015)

If I were to make a list of best film names, this would be near the top. It is from a section of a poem by Alexander Pope that goes like this:
"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" The whole poem is long and good but not important to this review. What I love is how effortlessly they dropped the title. A long and cumbersome title like this would normally drag the audience out of the film if someone said it. But this is no ordinary film. This is often ranking as one of the top movies of the 00's. And it dispenses the title fluidly. In fact, it's more than that; the title drop is one of the best moments of a movie with a lot of them, How many times can you say that about a film? Sometimes I've come out of a mediocre film and snarked that the title drop's the best part. When I finished watching this film, I honestly and sincerely thought that the title drop is one of the best parts. And that is saying something. There are a lot of great parts.
The plot is fairly complex, but the premise is simple enough: after Clementine (A delightful Kate Winslet) has her relationship with Joel (Jim Carrey in the best performance he has ever given or ever will give) erased, Joel seeks to have the same thing done to himself. But after he realizes that some of the memories are worthy keeping, he fights to save them. Of course, if it was that simple, the film may have made more money (it didn't flop, but it only made it to 70 million worldwide and that was only one the starpower of Mr. Carrey. I may not love him as an actor or a person for the most part, but I do appreciate that he basically allowed this film to get made) or pleased more people back in its day (it got a 2.4x multiplier- frankly terrible for this sort of film- as well as a B Cinemascore, both of which make me more depressed for the people of this world).
This is a dense and quite thematic film. If you want dull laughs, check out something else. Wikipedia calls it a romantic science-fiction comedy-drama, which basically tells you all you need to know about its level of complexity. Kaufman is the scriptwriter and it shows. If you like his other films, you will like this one. But if you don't, try it out anyways.
I never have loved Kaufman movies. I respect them to the moon and back; he is one of the best screenwriters in the world. I would give Being John Malokovich and the like high marks from an artistic viewpoint. But I've never really liked them on a personal level, and as film to me is a deeply emotional medium, I have never been able to support any of his films. Except this one. I suppose it's because, at its core, this film is a true love story.
I don't mean that it is absolutely a love story, though it is. I mean that it is a love story that goes beyond the fairy tale/ fourteen year-old girl/ Taylor Swift version of love. It's complex, it's multifaceted, it's intense, it's fading, it's important, it's destructive. I don't like a lot of Kaufman flicks because they don't fulfill me; I want to like them because they're artfully written, but they just seem dark without having a core; the equivalent of a grand castle with nobody home, if you will.
I love this film because it uses those artistic stylings and philosophical thoughts to support a romantic, emotional, humanist core. It does not shoot you straight up into intellectual outerspace. It arcs you across it and you come down on the other side knowing that you are at least a bit more wise and cultured and emotionally intelligent than you were before. It actually takes its audience somewhere forward, somewhere worth being. All great films, this one including, do that while staying on their own terms.
This is the sort of film that I could write a book about, at least if I watched the film constantly to keep it fresh in my mind. There is so much going on here, but not the sake of posturing. I love that in a film. The music is stunning. A good deal (though not enough) main pieces fit the themes of their film. The main piece of this movie actually enhances its themes. It is confused, melancholy, hopeful, romantic, wonky, cynical, and at the day's end, stunning, just like this film. The other pieces and songs are no less appropriate, including Beck's Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes, which has a spot on my playlist on any rainy day.
I never want to forget watching this movie.