Bizarre and yet beautiful exploration of love, just not brilliant

Rating: 7/10 (29 October 2009)

Joel Barish(Jim Carrey) is informed that his ex-girlfriend Clementine(Kate Winslet) who he was romantically involved with has had her parts of her memories erased, the memory of there relationship. The procedure was done by Dr. Mierzwiak(Tom Wilkinson) and the people that work for him. Mainly to get even he decides to get the same procedure done to himself. While the people that work for Dr. Mierzwiak go to work on Joel Barish, Joel changes his mind but the procedure is still going with his body paralyzed, but he struggles in his mind to save the memories of Clementine from being deleted. And that is basically the premise of the film, and when I first read the synopsis I thought it would be a dumb film but decided to give it a try anyways and too my surprise I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a bizarre but intriguing film and it's wonderful in some areas as well, it also strives to be original as well. A lot of aspect of this film is absurd especially the whole procedure although it is some what fascinating but just ridiculous, but it's entirely forgivable since entire erasing of Joel's memories serves as just a backdrop to the whole film. Watching this film was like watching a bizarre dream come to life, with it dealing with love, romance and memories. The time period change can get a bit confusing though since Gondry's visual 'clues' are subtle and the character Jim Carrey played wasn't lovable and don't care as much if he able to overcome his angst, which is some of the gripe I have with the movie. It would have been nice if they pushed the character creativity a bit further. I also found it to be a bit self indulgent which is okay, but also seem to drag the film at times. The film isn't complex or deep as some people claim it to be, it's a straight forward story but a good one.
7.9/10