Fascinating story about two losers

Rating: 7/10 (16 April 2004)

ESOTSM is a science fiction romantic comedy. The basic premise is the tried and true romantic comedy plot where an ordinary but lovable guy and a kooky, free-spirited but lovable girl fall in love. Except in this case, the two lovers are not so lovable. The guy, Joel (Carrey), is not just ordinary; he's boring and inarticulate. In his imagination, he's more the ladies man, but in real life, he can't even make eye contact with women. The girl, Clementine (Winslet), is an alcoholic narcissist who comes on to guys like Joel to flatter her ego because she's too insecure to try for anyone better. In each of these relationships, she soon realizes just how boring the poor guy is, unceremoniously dumps him, and moves on to the next victim.
Here is what I thought was fascinating about the movie--you never get to see what really happened between Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clem (Kate Winslet) in their first relationship. I think this is the point of the movie. It's about how our memories distort the reality of relationships. The fun of watching the movie is trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together and figure out what really happened. Unfortunately, the non-linear structure makes this more difficult. Because ESOTSM jumps around in time, it is too easy for viewers to mistakenly to interpret the movie as a series of flashbacks. Actually, I don't think there are any flashbacks at all about the relationship itself. Instead, the movie shows several distorted versions of their affair: Joel's memory of the relationship, Joel's adventure in his own mind in which he and Clem try to evade the memory zappers, Joel and Clem's tape recordings about each other, and finally their second relationship after their memories have been wiped. In each of these versions of reality, you only get hints of what might have happened. Even watching the two fall in love again doesn't tell you that much because you don't know what effect the memory wipes had on their personalities.
In Joel's memory and in his imaginary adventure, he's articulate and charming. In real life, he can hardly think of anything to say to a woman. Joel remembers Clem either as more endearing or witchier than she really is. In his imaginary adventure, she is an idealized version of herself, the way he wishes she had been.
I have mixed feelings about ESOTSM. I think that the subplot with Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, and Kirsten Dunst was boring. The high tech equipment used to perform the memory wipes looked really cheap and unconvincing. Even the doctor's office had a cheap, low-rent look (The doctor can afford all of this cutting-edge medical equipment but he can't even get a decent office?) Ultimately, I could not get past the fact that the two main characters were such losers in real life. Nevertheless, I give the movie 7 out of 10.