Partial recall

Rating: 7/10 (1 October 2007)

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman wrote the wonderfully surreal 'Being John Malkovich', and he's at it again in 'The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', a similarly bizarre tale. To classify (wholly unfairly) it as genre, it's a romantic sci-fi (and how many of those do you see?), set in a world where disillusioned lovers can have their memories of each other erased. There's plenty of natural material in this concept, but unfortunately, Kaufman and director Michel Gondry are arguably guilty of trying a little too hard: the middle section of the movie takes place inside the characters' brains, for no real purpose in terms of plot: the film fills this logical vacuum with some evocative cinematography, but its impact is lessened because the film-makers have first licensed themselves to show anything they want. What they do get right, in combination with the leads, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett, is to show real (positive and negative) chemistry between the protagonists; if anything, at times they appear almost too adorable, but at least there's a spark. And although daft, the film is wholly watchable and actually not bad at manipulating the viewer's emotions; but perhaps Kaufman didn't need to make his script jump through quite so many hoops.