Just perfect. A truthful film about relationships.

Rating: 10/10 (26 February 2020)

A very insightful story about relationships. Are they really that hard? The answer is: Yes, that's what relationships are like. You do remember how you met and why you fell in love. All the happy memories are there. But then, there is also all that other stuff. The things you start to hate about each other. The unrepairable mistakes you made. The regrets. And at some times they end up on top, covering up the foundation of good things, the common ground, the reason why you started to build up the relationship together.
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" has an absolutely fascinating way of depicting that mechanism. Funnily, it starts with a Valentine's Day reference in the opening scene. That is to say: This movie is going to be in strong contrast with the banality of Valentine's Day greeting cards. Valentine's Day celebrates naive, young love, love that is confident because it is oblivious. In the climax scene the movie contrasts the protagonists' (and our own) wish for a happy end with the tape recordings of both ex lovers spelling out each other's most repelling qualities and the reasons why they crave for the relationship to be wiped off their memories. The movie is about love an still is the contrary of Valentine's Day banality: It celebrates love, conscious and aware of the problems and backdrops. It admits: Maybe you get through it together, maybe you don't.
Worth mentioning besides that: The thrilling performances by the main actors (Winslet, Carrey) and the supporting actors (Dunst, Ruffalo, Wilkinson, Wood), the constant suspense that had me on the edge of my chair regardless of the film's overall rather slow 'pace'; a very well-contrived "Memento"-like time structure, and the unostentatious visual effects that are a vital part of the storytelling but don't steel the show.
In sum, one of the best movies I know.