Brilliant but Flawed

Rating: 8/10 (12 December 2004)

I've never seen a film that better embodies the "decompression" that one undergoes at the end of a relationship. This film is brilliantly directed, beautifully shot & edited and there is some very good writing.
There are two stories here, the main one (Jim Carrey & Kate Winslet) which I consider the "brilliant" part and the secondary story (Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo etc.). The secondary story brought this film down. It starts off great but really trails off lamely. The mind erasing people are supposed to be "kooky" and they are, but it's pretty forced and not funny at all and pretty pointless. Similar to Shakespeare's use of comic relief in secondary side stories, at least in S's case, the side stories had a point and were often poignant themselves. This "comedic relief" simply wasn't and really had no relation to the main story except that the characters interacted. Also, the numerous pot references were tiresome. That stuff is only funny to dedicated stoners and seemed incongruent to the rest of the movie.
SPOILER: A truly brilliant moment comes at the end of the film when, considering whether they should stay in contact, Clementine says she will only end up getting bored and hating him for it (as if it's her pattern with men and she knows it) and Joel says OK, that's fine with him. As if his love for her is so important, he's OK with having to deal with that major, inevitable obstacle. He doesn't care. -- That's material with real depth, obviously coming from a writer who's had some life experience.
There are no easy answers about love in this film, which is why it's brilliant. It really captures the complexities and wonder of relationships.