Movie genius

Rating: 9/10 (27 March 2005)

In the modern world, we've come to rely on technology as a means of deadening our pain and mitigating the unpleasant realities of our lives. We medicate ourselves to avoid both physical and psychological suffering, confident in the belief that the elimination of all sorrow and discomfort will somehow lead to happiness. But what would happen if someday we developed the technology to systematically wipe from our minds the memories of a person with whom we fell out of love or who fell out of love with us? Given the choice, which would we rather have, a painful memory of a failed relationship or no memory of that relationship at all? It's not an easy question to answer for, after all, don't sadness and pain play every bit as vital a role as happiness and joy in defining who we are as human beings? Don't we need those low points to make the high points that much more meaningful and real? These are just some of the questions posed by "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, " a romance-cum-science-fiction tale that is yet another demanding, provocative brainchild of Charlie Kaufman, the man responsible for "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation." In "Eternal Sunshine," Jim Carrey plays Joel Barish, a buttoned-up, play-by-the-rules stuffed shirt, ground down by routine and unsuccessful in the ways of love, who meets and falls head over heels for Clementine (Kate Winslet), a high-flying free spirit who opens up new vistas of experience for the nervous, unadventurous young man. However, if it is true that opposites do indeed attract, they also have the power to repel, and Joel and Joel and Clementine soon find themselves drifting apart over their many innate differences. In fact, they are drifting so far apart that Celementine has decided to undergo a medical procedure that will effectively erase all traces of Joel from her memory. When a heartbroken Joel learns that she has done this, he retaliates by doing the same with his memories of her. The vast majority of the film takes place in Joel's jumbled mind as he is undergoing the procedure to nullify his one true love - and regretting his decision halfway through.
The synopsis for this movie fails to do justice to the sheer brilliance of both the concept and the execution, as we are taken through a cascading cavalcade of reality and fantasy, memories and recollections, all highly revelatory of the relationship between these two people. The movie is like a glorious kaleidoscope in which the writer and director, Michel Gondry, continually twist the picture in such a way that we never know what the next image or concept will be, yet with their hands so firmly placed on the instrument that we always know where we are at all times. Even if we don't always understand every single scene or image at the moment we are seeing it, we know that it will all make sense once the full scenario has played itself put. If "Eternal Sunshine" reminds us of any one movie, it is most likely Stanley Donen's "Two For the Road," that great 1967 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney that also used an ingenious structure of interlocking time periods and events to show us the growth and disintegration of a romantic relationship. "Two For the Road" did it while operating solely on the level of conscious reality; now, Kaufman, by delving into the subconscious world of half-remembered incidents and ephemeral dreams, ratchets up the concept a notch or two higher. Even though "Eternal Sunshine" keeps shifting the planes of its reality, the audience never loses its bearings for a single moment.
Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet have never been better than they are here, creating characters who are compelling, likable and utterly believable as they make their way through this convoluted but wonderfully challenging maze of a screenplay. It's amazing how believable and touching Carrey and Winslet manage to be in the midst of all this seeming disorder. They root the film in the human reality all fantasies need to be compelling.
Towards the end, as the film brings all its disparate elements together on a single plane of reality, the movie asks us to ponder yet another difficult and challenging question: is it possible for two people in a failed relationship to drift apart for awhile, then reunite successfully if they go into the renewed relationship fully cognizant of those elements that drove them apart the first time around? It is just one of the many intriguing ideas to consider in this brilliant, creative and thoroughly fascinating film.
As with Kaufman's previous cinematic mindbenders, "Eternal Sunshine" occasionally feels a bit too cute and a bit too clever for its own good. However, this film suffers less from this malady and feels to be more of a piece than his earlier works. With a Kaufman film - and with "Eternal Sunshine" in particular - we know we're getting something original, unique and intellectually demanding, which is far from the normal state of affairs when it comes to mainstream American movie-making. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is a film for the ages.