Wondering about your own choices over time

Rating: 9/10 (15 November 2013)

It's one of the great movies dealing with toying with one's psyche.
Erasing someone from your memory to get rid of the suffering and all the associated memories.
This is like time traveling into the relatively distant future. Does this not usually happen with us? The mind cleanses itself of bad things, it minimizes them in a corner where you really need to look to remember, a corner you can't find by accident. But perhaps a corner that influences present actions and decisions without realizing.
So this film makes me wonder: is this an exercise to imagine what would happen maybe 10 years from a break up? What if you meet again, what if you could hear yourself bashing that person years ago for the reasons of your breakup – would you feel the same, would you feel ashamed? Would you go for it again, knowing with some degree of certainty what the outcome will be, just to experience those great moments again? You know it will end up in misery, but maybe it's a hell of a ride which makes it all worthwhile.
As the viewer you're allowed to see this as a valid option, a bad idea, an unethical procedure or anything else in between. Usually you don't get the perspective of the people behind the idea, they just do it cold heartedly. Getting the scientists themselves inevitably involved in the same situation as their clients/patients, they get to see the ethical dilemma and attempt to make it right.
Now, this itself is an ethical dilemma: do you respect these people's initial decision to forget? Do you forcibly get them a chance to remember? This gets me back to the idea from the first paragraphs: in real life, there are people or circumstances that rake up the corner where you minimized the painful memory and trigger a wave of remembrance. Can you detach yourself, because it's so long ago and you've long left it behind? Will remembering make a significant impact on your current life?
I enjoyed the insight of how irresponsible they are while playing with a person's brain – booze, drugs, sex, oblivious to warning signs.
Occasionally the time jumps were confusing and the cyclic ending clears things up. It was perfect for starting the movie over just to see some of the details from the first part again, to get all the subtleties. Clementine's hair color actually contributes to keeping track of the jumps.
Jim Carrey as Joel and Kate Winslet as Clementine are both gorgeous and give wonderful performances. For him, this is much closer to the Truman Show Jim that any other I've seen. Kate looks very young, she's amazingly beautiful this woman. Her performance makes me understand why guys fall for somewhat crazy or unstable women – and also makes me see, honestly speaking, that every woman has this type of moments. Then again I compared Clementine/Kate to Tiffany/Jennifer Lawrence from the Silver Linings Playbook of 2012 and wondered (again) how come these kind of roles get the awards and praise.
Beautiful movie. Will be revisiting sometime in the future.