The Most Vivid Exploitation of Cinema in the Sevice of Great Storytelling

Rating: 9/10 (28 February 2011)

What's the best part of this astonishingly mesmerizing film? I'd say it's the thorough mastery of the cinematic form. It's every element is blended into a towering achievement of modern movie making, whose seamless integration of story, technique, effects, and performances is truly genius. Charlie Kaufman was already one of my all time favorite screen writers, his Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Human Nature had already so completely entertained me. But Michael Gondry's direction of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (ESOTSM) has set a new lofty standard for all future celluloid captured creativity.
Depicting that elusive, mercury slick quality of our thoughts, dreams and memories has long been a major challenge for all film makers. Many have relied somewhat successfully on a deft control of pace, where subtle shifts in timing and rhythm are all that's needed to prompt us to an altered reality. Gondry does this as perfectly as anyone else. Others have been much more blatant and broad, employing such conventions as blurred, hazy images recorded through Vaseline smeared lenses, or even depositing their characters into suddenly severely disproportionate sets, absurdly large or tiny props introduced as a short hand gimmick. Gondry avails himself of these conventional techniques, but only to masterfully exploit them for their comedic impact. And too many other less capable hacks have not even bothered to differentiate the two states, merely having the dreamer wake suddenly, violently, to reveal that the previous experience was all just mental chimera. A cheap, lousy stunt. Yes, Gondry even stoops to this cornball level, and does it so very fluidly, seemingly as a gesture of genuine respect to all the cinematic tactics that have so powerfully informed and shaped our own self illusions and delusions. But Michael Gondry has also fully grasped the value of computer aided graphics in merging both the exterior and interior worlds. The dreamed, imagined, remembered locales and environs are all as "real" as any anything else in this film till they suddenly begin to fray, crack and crumble. Rooms and houses are seen to disassemble themselves methodically, randomly, or explosively with utterly natural grace. Like a drunken, drugged fantasy, the whole of the universe unzips and inverts; gravity now repulses and cause precedes effect. It's so deeply disorienting. These meticulously rendered, dizzying episodes are precisely the experience that's needed to convey the frantic, paranoid terror of losing one's memories. It feels as though all computer graphic effects were developed exclusively, expressly for this one exact movie.
The script is brilliantly self deprecating, as if continually surprised to find itself actually passing for science fiction. It's an admirable conceit that Charlie has everyone so ambivalent about the fantastical mind erasing procedure till well after things are under way. There's nothing more dizzying than to have everyone not realize just how dizzy you are. It's these subtle, unique expressions of wondrous doubt and confusion that really demand so much of the cast. Jim Carey's subdued, focused performance is often exhilarating, and always exactly on key. His moments as a tiny, not-so tiny, tot version of himself are sublimely hilarious. Kate Winslet, as clever as she is gorgeous, hits so many amazing notes with absolutely pitch perfect skill. And the support crew are all entirely wonderful, with Tom Wilkinson effortlessly animating the beleaguered but arrogant doctor, and Mark Ruffalo so comfortable as a slacker nerd with hip habits. Kirsten Dunst is adorable as his playmate coworker, and Elijah Wood makes post-teen angst feel as sharp and dirty as a rusty nail.
This delicate balance of hilarity and poignancy sounds like a fine recipe for old time movie romance, and ESOTSM would have been only that if everything wasn't so expertly orchestrated towards a more sophisticated purpose. Yes, it's true we are cheering for the reunion of our tragically separated hero and heroine, that's the obvious bit. But what elevates and distinguishes this tale is it's insistence on making valid claims to virtue and nobility, much more so than any simple love story ever could. Kaufman and Gondry certainly recognize the value and power that shared affection plays in our daily existence, but they have tied this emotion to an even larger, deeper experience. They have hitched it to our sense of consciousness. What truly interests Charlie is our ability - our necessity - to consider and reflect on just who we are, on who we want to be, and on how we strive be that person. He is hoping to introduce us again to our own sense of destiny. He is a master technician at constructing elaborate devices to capture our imaginations and direct them towards more obscure, rare regions of the psyche. This treacherously seductive machine, this supremely elegant film has carried me to a genuinely higher place. I actually feel enlightened and enlarged and more human for having seen it.