I loved this movie, but can't remember why ...

Rating: 9/10 (25 April 2004)

Hollywood has a short but intense tradition of memory-as-identity and what-is-reality movies; Blade Runner (stylish but dense), Total Recall (sci-fi thriller), Memento (if you like Bach, you'll love this movie), Minority Report (stylish but icy), Paycheck, and a few others. A lot of theme, if not actually based on a Philip K. Dick story, seem to be informed by the ideas and questions he dealt with in his fiction. Now comes Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet who, in this movie, finally get to the point(s) that it seems that the other movies have been only touching on occasionally: are we more than our memories?, and if we can't rely on our perceptions, what can we rely on? This movie is different from the others in that it has a heart; in fact, it's all about heart. Jim Carrey's character, Joel, finds out that his girlfriend, played by Kate Winslet, has gone to the trouble of having all memories of him erased from her mind (through a procedure that is presented as no more invasive or out of the ordinary than, say, laser surgery), and in revenge, or at least in reaction, Joel decides to have the same procedure done to him. Midway through the night that this is being done, in his dreamlike state, he changes his mind, and at least a third of the movie happens during the time when he is trying to shield his memories of her from the erasing process. He realizes that he doesn't want to lose the memories of her, as painful as some of those may be. Jim and Kate are surrounded by good actors here, but it's Kate Winslet that really shines. Joel's mental state often seems to be a bit confused (that is, I'm not sure where he is) but Kate communicates so clearly with every expression and flick of her eye. And it's a tribute to the writing that this ultimately makes sense; I don't really admire the direction and all of the arty special effects in this film, because it doesn't need it - the script is that good, so good, in fact, that it could probably be acted on a bare stage. Well, maybe not quite. The only time it threatens to come off the rails is in the antics of the actual operators who are doing the erasing, played by Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, and joined by Kirsten Dunst and, finally, the superb Tom Wilkinson, who's given the best single line of the movie: when asked if this causes brain damage, replies,"Well, technically, the procedure IS brain damage". And what seem to be tangential subplots end up curling back on the main plot in the most unexpected and essential way.
As I mentioned, the direction is a bit frantic and the art direction alternates between being a bit too grimy and a bit too mannered for this material, but when one looks at what Speilberg did with Minority Report, one is grateful for small favors. The movie has lots of unexplored nooks and crannies, and you sense that as tight as the script is, it isn't trying to just be a tour de force like Memento, but to make a point that, in Joel's Everyman character's mind, is highly emotional about life and love and pain. It actually fleshes out the whole idea of the replicant Rachel in Blade Runner, who had false memories implanted in her to make her think she was a human; here the opposite is being done, and the characters (and not just the leads) try to deal with the question of just what this has done to their humanity. Other threads that are brought up and touched on or implied are: if you have had this procedure done to you, what are the lasting side effects? And afterward, is there still an attraction between the people - that is, does part of your being still remember? I hope this is remembered later on, not only during awards season, but by others who try to mine this material.