Unique

Rating: 9/10 (6 November 2008)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is, no doubt, a difficult film, unless one has read introduction or reviews before watching it, but it is absolutely a good one. The idea of erasing memory is not a fresh one actually, but the uniqueness of this film lies in the way it handles the process of erasing. Compared with other films, cartoons or books with this idea, which only take it as one part of the plot, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind does not only show us Joel's (Jim Carrey) memories about Clementine (Kate Winslet) in a reversed chronological order, but also makes a connection between his inner thoughts and the outer realistic ongoing. For example, when Joel hears Patrick (Elijah Wood) talking about how he steals his ideas, words and gifts to date and please Clementine during the erasing process, there is a reaction in his inner thoughts that he wants to tell Clementine that Patrick cheats. What is more, the pace of presenting memory is dealt with appropriately. Sometimes several pieces of memory are erased one after another in a compact way which causes you a kind of pain in heart that you can hardly tell, because the process is so fast that you do not even have time to resist Clementine's disappearance. Some other pieces of memory are dealt with in a relatively slow and peaceful pace, such as the seaside house episode and the one when Joel and Clementine meet each other for the first time. These pieces are so wonderful that you are unwilling to erase them and feel even more sorrowful when they are erased. The mixture of different paces to handle the erasing process has successfully avoided a monotonous slide show of memory.
As for the cast, Jim Carrey has once again proved his talent. Different from his roles in the past, Joel is a quiet character with rich, complex inner world, which does not require much performance of exaggerated body language, and Jim Carrey has shown his ability in the subtle performance, such as the eye contact and the tone he speaks in, so as to fit in the role in the film. Elijah Wood is good, too, presenting a fairly realistic young man Patrick who courts girls with the advantages he takes of his work, and has erased all the traces of a Hobbit.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind just keeps us thinking about the way we treat our memory. Good memory is to be cherished, but what about the nightmares? Shall we just bury or erase them? Bad memory is painful for us, but doesn't it, together with the good part, make us whole people?