A Love Story As Only Charlie Kaufman in a Phildickian Mood Could Tell It

Rating: 7/10 (19 March 2004)

Yes, I realize that any review that isn't an unabashed love letter to this film is likely to get a "No" vote! :-) I hope you'll note that although I didn't love this film, I didn't hate it, either. Charlie Kaufman's script deserved its Oscar, the acting is top-notch, the emotions rang true, and the DVD's got loads of goodies -- it was the direction that I felt dragged the film down.
If Philip K. Dick had written a romantic comedy, the result might have turned out like ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. In this seriocomic SF love story, Jim Carrey proves again that he's not just another mugging face, and Charlie Kaufman proves that he's the master of surreal dramedy. Director Michel Gondry, however, proves that Spike Jonze is really the most suitable director for Kaufman's particular brand of daffiness.
Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are stunningly believable as dysfunctional couple Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski. Clem initially seems like a sexy free spirit with a roguish streak, but as their romance continues, Joel sees the dark side of Clem's impulsive nature: on her bad days, hard-drinking Clem is needy and temperamental. What's worse, she sees Joel's relentlessly low-key, emotionally walled-off nature as a rebuke to her recklessness. Mutual misery ensues.
No wonder Clem finally consults Lacuna, a Manhattan company run by avuncular Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) that erases your memories of a bad relationship. Lacuna even sends postcards to clients' intimates telling them not to mention the erased ex again, as Joel discovers when he sees one in their mutual friend's mail. Heartbroken, he also opts for the Lacuna treatment. While the erasing process takes him through memories of life with Clem, we discover that, when Joel wasn't being passive and Clem wasn't drunkenly cracking up Joel's car at 3 AM, the couple also enjoyed many good times together. Joel's reluctant to forget these happy moments, and that's where the film gets phantasmagorical as reality, fantasy, and memory collide. Within the maze of Joel's mind, he and Clem (who's been panicking and feeling like she's "disappearing" as she's slowly wiped from Joel's brain, despite having already forgotten him) team up and try to hide in all kinds of memories she has no part of. The funniest of these is the scene in Joel's childhood home, as a shrunken-to-child-size Joel faces Clem as his mom's miniskirt-clad, go-go-booted neighbor.
The details of Lacuna's workings are ...SUNSHINE's most consistently witty, entertaining bits. Lacuna looks like a typical busy doctor's office, with receptionist Mary (Kirsten Dunst at her most winsome and dimply) constantly scheduling appointments: "Valentine's Day is our busiest time." Funny yet poignant details abound, such as the teary-eyed client loaded down with her dog's belongings, a crucial part of wiping away memories of a loved one. The actual procedure is performed by young computer techies Stan (Mark Ruffalo) and Patrick (Elijah Wood, leaving Frodo Baggins far behind) who erase the subjects' memories in their homes while they sleep. The techs act like a bunch of fun-loving but irresponsible babysitters, swilling the unsuspecting Joel's whiskey, smoking pot and having sex (with Mary, not each other :-) as he sleeps. But Patrick goes beyond mischievousness into unethicality: usually a strikeout with women, he's begun dating Clementine, having fallen in love with her while erasing her Joel memories. Patrick tries to take the expressway to her heart by wooing her with her discarded Joel mementos. Of course, he doesn't consider that since Joel's relationship with Clem went sour despite all those nice gifties, history just might repeat itself. I was disappointed that there wasn't a bigger payoff to the Patrick subplot; he just kind of disappears from the film as if *he* were erased. Of course, that may well be the point! :-) Director Gondry, who also directed Kaufman's HUMAN NATURE (2001), spends so much time cross-cutting, juggling the movie's timeline, and inexplicably staging certain scenes in darkness with only a flashlight rendering the characters' faces visible that instead of enhancing the storytelling, it's merely distracting. I kept getting the feeling Gondry didn't trust the story itself to keep moviegoers' attention -- ironic, since he shares story credit with Kaufman and artist Pierre Bismuth. Having said that, when the visuals work, they work wonderfully, like when our hero and heroine dash through Grand Central Station while commuters wink out of existence left and right.
Refreshingly, the New York locations aren't the usual hip or glamorous places. Joel and Clementine live in Rockville Centre, Long Island, and their apartments look just like homes of college students or artistic types trying to inject Soho style into suburbia. The filmmakers also make splendid use of the stark beauty of Montauk beaches in winter.
For Carrey fans seeking slapstick and belly laughs, ...SUNSHINE... may seem to drag on eternally; its humor is more in the rueful TRUMAN SHOW vein, shot through with Kaufman's trademark surrealism. If you want a love story that will make you laugh knowingly and think about the way people approach relationships, ...SUNSHINE... is worth seeing. Hopefully it will convince you that counseling is a better approach to your relationship problems than science-fiction gadgetry!