Visceral, emotional and well written.

Rating: 8/10 (13 July 2013)

If there was one word I would use to describe Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it would be visceral. The entire film is loaded with rich and honest detail, in its setting and in its characters and in its emotion. You can look at the characters in their environment and see many things you can relate to, and Gondry succeeded with this intention, because love is something that we can all relate to and it helps make this story more personal.
The concept is ambitious, despite it being centered around something we are all familiar with; heartbreak. What if you had your heart broken and you wished that all of those memories would just go away? So you don't have to deal with the unbearable emotional pain that comes with it? Well in this film, such a business exists. Joel (Jim Carrey) signs up to get his memories of Clementine (Kate Winslet) erased because he's far too damaged from the turmoil.
The film's narrative is told through a unique structure, which should be no surprise when you find that the brilliant Charlie Kaufman wrote the screenplay. The movie exists in the present while Joel is enduring his procedure, and in the memories inside his head, which include events that already happened and a lucid Joel who is aware of what is happening inside these memories and tries to run from it with Clementine. These sequences in particular are brilliant because they really capture a dream-like aura to them that are quite appropriate. It's like when you're trying to tell someone something but it's just not getting through to them. Then there's the frustration and the desperation that comes with trying to change something that feels out of your grasp.
The bad memories are the ones to go first, the ones we don't hesitate to forget. The arguments and the fighting and the crying, the memories that we don't want to remember when they're associated with such good. It's only when the good memories start being effected that Joel tries desperately to hold onto those. He doesn't want to forget, he just wants to relive them and he wants to stay there forever. So he and Clementine hide in memories where they can't be found to hold onto the love they used to have. Yes, its as touching as it sounds. Kaufman made a smart choice in his screenplay in not completely setting the movie inside Joel's mind. Instead, actors such as Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood and Tom Wilkinson, who are the people carrying out the procedure on Joel, are going through their own experiences involving love and heartbreak. This is important because it represents how this kind of love is something that we all go through. It wouldn't make sense for just the main character and his love to be going through it, then it wouldn't seem so real. When you have such skilled actors playing these parts, it does not derail from the story or the excitement in any way, it strengthens it.
But the stars of the show here are Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, who share a magnetic chemistry. Carrey is shy and vulnerable and introverted, his soft-spoken narration is reflective of his personality. With Clementine, Joel's personality opens up and with her he feels the way he's never felt before. And the emotional journey he goes through as he tries to save his love with her is played quite well by Carrey. Its a wonderful dramatic turn from him that's different from his unique style of comedy he's known for. Kate Winslet is a tour de force, completely disappearing into her character's skin. She gives her charm and enough quirks to make her unique and alive but also very human. All of the actors in this film make it work.
All of these things mentioned, along with the outstanding camera work and visuals and locations, even the use of its soundtrack all help craft what is one of the most memorable films to emerge from the 2000s. Its very well crafted and smart and encourages the viewer to think and feel. And what more can those of us who appreciate movies ask for?