Avoid at all costs!

Rating: Null/10 (20 May 2004)

Rated as one of the best comedies released this year, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind looked promising when you take into consideration its abundance of famous faces, including the hilarious Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst. However, Hollywood's A-list was wasted on this mundane and complicated storyline from the writers of the equally strange Being John Malkovitch. The story centres on the relationship between dull and boring Joel Barish (Carrey) and outrageous and impulsive Clementine (Winslet), complete with rainbow coloured hair. The pair fall in love and all appears well until Joel discovers Clementine has undergone a radical procedure to erase all memories of him as a result of her unhappiness. Subsequently, Joel decides to go through the procedure himself. During the memory-erasing process however, he realises just how precious his memories of Clem are and attempts to outrun the erasers. I spent the rest of the film wishing I'd brought some paracetamol or a book.
Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst are responsible for erasing the memories from Joel's mind and carry out the process in a highly professional and conventional manner - They have sex, drink excessively and get high on dope while tampering with Joel's brain. And I thought the NHS was bad. Although the acting was of a high standard, it was difficult to see Carrey in a film that didn't require his trademark rubber faces and classic voices.
Consequently, I found I had to make a concerted effort to take his unusually sombre character seriously. Overall, although some may see Sunshine as an endearing look at fate and the promotion of the ideology of living for the moment and letting life take its natural course, for me, it was merely an awkward collocation of love and science that possesses credibility purely from its famous cast.
I wouldn't mind erasing this film from my memory.