5-4 IMDb Movie Review-On Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind "SPOILER"

Rating: 7/10 (11 March 2012)

Joel Barish (Jim Carry) falls in love with the Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) and they are involved in a relationship for about two years when the relationship ends in detestation. The two individuals seek help from an organization that deletes parts of an individual's memory. The two fallow through with the procedure, then inadvertently find themselves in a relationship all over again. The company then through a series of intricate relations sends out invoices releasing information stating that the two have previously known each other. They realize that they have previously had relations and decide that it is worth the risk of failure to experience there relationship over again. The theme of the movie may be explained as a tragedy in that both Joel and Clementine lost the memories that made the relationship between them worth remembering. The theme could also be explained as a classic love story and how unbreakable the bonds of love may be. The end of the film when the characters discover their past relationship is an ideal example of the theme. The dialogue between Joel and Clementine is a representation of how the two of them chose to overcome their struggles as opposite minded individuals and continue on the relationship despite those differences. These thematic ideas of tragedy are reflected entirely different from all the aspects of the characters within the plot. However the tragedy still remains relevant to each characters part within the story. The tragic nature of The Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind can be juxtaposed with the tragic nature of Andrew Niccol's film The Truman Show, which also stars Jim Carry, and carries the thematic events relative to the classic love story genre. The lighting within the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind used excessive amounts of unnatural light to depict a type of surreal nature within the film. The lighting used when Joel was in a dream state would usually have this excessive brightness contrasted with the pure dark background to portray a sense of depression and emptiness. When the characters were in peaceful situations of retrospective happiness, the lighting was almost purely natural without any elements of harsh darkness. Intense colors within the film would attract the audiences attention to a certain aspect. Within Joel's dream state the black on white contrast focused the audiences attention to the importance of the characters and their movements, actions, and feelings. Outside of the dream state, the outstanding colors often were associated with Clementine and therefore draw more interest to her character and gave life to Joel's life. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind successfully inhibited the use of all these motifs to recreate the often-overused theme of the tragic love story. The true beauty of language and cinematography was not lost due to overacting or unsuccessful cinematography. The thematic ideas portrayed were in no way overplayed. The motifs of good film structure worked, as they should, in harmony within the film.