A High Kaufman-Esque Concept That Is Anything But Hollywood

Rating: 8/10 (13 March 2004)

Normally `high concept' films are big budget Hollywood movies with big stars that are easy to market because of a one sentence pitch idea. For instance, the new Jim Carrey film could be summarized as: After falling for a flamboyant outgoing partier, a shy recluse has her memory erased after the relationship goes bad, but then realizes he doesn't want to let her memory go.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which follows this idea, may seem like a high concept film, with the big star Jim Carrey and the easy to pitch storyline, but it is anything but a Hollywood clichéd movie. This is, in all essence, a Charlie Kaufman film. And either you're going to get it and love it, or you're not and think it's pretentious and boring; I of course am the former.
I label Eternal Sunshine a Charlie Kaufman film, rather than a Michel Gondry film (the director) because: A) a screenwriter rarely gets the credit he deserves, and B) the three films from original screenplays by Kaufman that I've seen [I missed Human Nature, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is an adaptation] all have similar characteristics, like the three main characters-Joel in Eternal Sunshine, Craig in Being John Malkovich, and himself in Adaptation-are all neurotic loners with a lot of the same idiosyncrasies, that wish they could be someone else or have a need for change in their life. Yet despite the similarities, each screenplay seems fresh and new because the writing is so creative and inventive. And whether it's Gondry or Spike Jonze directing, the idea and the creativity is from Kaufman.
***SPOILER/PLOT SUMMARY***
Eternal Sunshine opens with a 15 minute segment (before the opening credits), where we meet Joel Barish (Carrey), with his voice over narration, and learn he's a loner and writes his thoughts in a journal. He's obviously unhappy and calls in sick to work to go to the beach, and with his luck, it's a gloomy day at the beach. There he sees a girl, Clementine Kruczynski (Winslet), and eventually she comes up to him on the train home. They hit it off at her persistence, and it appears they are beginning a relationship. Soon we learn that appearances, and memories, can be deceiving.

Both Joel and Clementine have gone to Lacuna, Inc. to have the memory of their relationship erased. And without fully knowing it at first, we join Joel, after the opening, while Lacuna is erasing Clementine from his memory.

What's quite brilliant about this film is it doesn't set out to explain everything, to spoon-feed the plot; it lets you figure things out as you go along. There isn't much of a conventional narrative structure; at times it feels disjointed, elusive, much like Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams. But that's what is so great. Like 21 Grams, this is a film that makes you think.
There are also little things that really add to the script. `Lacuna', the name of the memory erasure company, means an empty space or a missing part. At one point when Joel enters Lacuna bringing materials from his relationship with Clementine, there is an old lady in the waiting room with her box of stuff that includes a dog bone and food dish, indicating she is there to have her memory of her dead dog removed.
***MORE SPOILERS***
It's also interesting to see how the final film changed from the first draft of the screenplay, available at www.beingcharliekaufman.com. The first draft contained book ends, where Mary (Dunst) as an old lady brought in a manuscript to Random House in the beginning, stating it was something very important that needed to be published. Then at the end, it comes back to her, and we learn Joel and Clementine have been erasing their relationship over and over again for the past 30 or so years. The book ends were cut, which is good, because the film emerges you right into Joel's life.
Focus Features, the main company who produced and is distributing Eternal Sunshine, is on the forefront of releasing cutting edge independent films. Some of their past films include 21 Grams, Lost in Translation, Swimming Pool, The Shape of Things, The Pianist, and Far From Heaven. Like those other risky ventures, again they are taking quite a risk with Eternal Sunshine.
This is not a Jim Carrey movie as we know it; this is not the Jim Carrey we know. This isn't even a comedy. I equate Carrey's performance in Eternal Sunshine, and the transformation he has made from his regular comedic performances, to that of Bill Murray's dramatic turn in Lost in Translation.

Eternal Sunshine is a lot like Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love in the way he used Adam Sandler in a different type of comedy, and it paid off there, just like it pays off here. But I wonder if the audience will think so, as Punch-Drunk really didn't do all that well, because it was so different, because people weren't used to a beautifully shot character driven romantic dark comedy that didn't star Sandra Bullock or Jennifer Lopez.
Eternal Sunshine is even more fully realized than Punch-Drunk though, as Punch-Drunk was a bit lacking on Lena the love-interest character. Eternal Sunshine is Kaufman's most fully realized screenplay to date, that develops all the characters, even the minor ones like Mary, Dr. Mierzwiak, Stan and Patrick.
My hope is the audience will live up to the challenge of Eternal Sunshine, because it's a challenge worth taking, a challenge that makes you think about relationships, about memories good and bad, and about life.
Alternative Recommendations: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Cable Guy, Heavenly Creatures, The Virgin Suicides, Punch-Drunk Love