The Mind has its reasons

Rating: Null/10 (25 April 2004)

Caution: Semi-Spoiler Ahead
Many more movies like this and a new term is likely to enter the critic's lexicon, 'Kaufmanesque', defined as 'somewhere between reality and fantasy, and aimed at somewhere around the human heart'. Charlie Kaufman's script for 'Being John Malkovich' was mostly fantasy, but involved, apart from a couple of comic turns, some only slightly bizarre people. 'Adaptation' apart from a possibly imaginary twin brother, was an essay in Hollywood metamorphosis, as a piece of sober non-fiction reportage is turned into a crummy action movie  nothing fantastic there. This movie involves only slight fantasy  the routine removal of unwanted memories by electronic means (does not every computer keyboard have a delete key?), and the central characters are as human and vulnerable as you might find in a big city like New York.
While his earlier scripts had straightforward time lines here Kaufman and his director, Michel Gondry rocket back and forth through a series of flashbacks to explain what really happened between Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslett). Joel in particular wants to forget the pain but remember the good bits and this interferes with the process. The whole thing is very artfully constructed and makes sense in the end but you have to keep your wits about you there are several different versions of the same incidents and some of the incidents are dreams rather than actuality.
Somehow the actors seem to be able to get out their performances despite the flashback high jinks and in the case of Joel and Clementine well-rounded portraits appear. They are opposites of course, Jim the introvert who hardly ever buys clothes and Kate the extrovert who changes her hair colour once a week. Jim Carrey, so often in noisy, eye-rolling roles, puts in a restrained and credible performance and Kate Winslett is convincing as the brash and upfront Clementine. The minor characters such as the technicians Ray (Mark Ruffalo) and Patrick (Elijah Wood)) verge on the comic though Tom Wilkinson is nicely low-key as Dr Mierzwiack of Lacuna Clinic, who devised the memory erasure process. The good doctor turns out to have a past, but it is more mundane than one might have thought.
Visually this is quite a stylish movie the beach snow scenes and some of the dream sequences are vividly appropriate. At one point Joel is in his mother's kitchen as a four year old, hiding under a giant table  we forget how small we were as young children. Lacuna operate from what looks like a suburban medical clinic using nothing more elaborate than a CAT scanner and laptop computers; there is no attempt to be sci-fi flash (though the headgear Joel wears during the erasure process looks like it was left over from a 'Startrek' episode).
You can forget your past but you are still the same person that helped create it. Not remembering, you are likely to repeat yourself. This being the case, this movie does not really have a surprise ending, but Kaufman and Gondry have produced a very attractive and imaginative love story, despite the somewhat difficult format of the picture. As no doubt readers of these columns will be aware the title comes from a poem by Alexander Pope. It's worth bearing in mind that Pope was talking about a Vestal Virgin  a professional virgin, in fact. Spotless minds are for virgins. If you engage in living a full life, you are bound to collect some psychic cuts and bruises on the way, and you are probably better off keeping the scars.