Intelligent romance

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2004)

Generally, romantic comedies fall into two types. Most celebrate the fantasy of love: the notions of destiny and soul-mates, where love comes between witty exchanges and longing looks set to music. This isn't necessarily a bad thing--in fact, some of these films are rather entertaining--but as everyone knows, love isn't like it is in the movies. It's complicated, messy, difficult, and sometimes doesn't work out no matter how hard you try. Which brings us to the second, rarer type of romantic comedy--the kind that celebrates the reality of love, in all its wonderful, awful glory. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is a film in this category.
The story begins on Valentines Day, with sad sack Joel (Jim Carrey) ditching his normal routine on an impulse and taking a train to Montauk, where he meets a cotton candy-haired free spirit named Clementine (Kate Winslet). They are drawn to each other in what seems like their first meeting, but as things progress we realize we've come in at the middle. For Joel and Clementine dated over the course of two years before things went sour. After a bad breakup, Joel learned that Clementine had her memories of him removed by a clandestine neurosurgeon (Tom Wilkinson) and his staff. In a fit of anger, Joel decides that he too wants Clementine "lost and gone forever." This is where the movie really takes off, as we enter Joel's mind and are taken backwards through his relationship with Clementine, the memories vanishing as Joel relives them. Michael Gondry and Charlie Kaufmann come up with an effective method of communicating the inner workings of Joel's mind on screen. Events follow the sort of bizarre logic that we find in dreams, overlapping and reflecting on each other, while Joel experiences them with the benefit of hindsight. Then the memories start to fade: first the details, then the important parts, until everything just crumbles, or is ripped away, or simply fades into nothing. When Joel decides he doesn't want to lose Clementine, he attempts to secret her away in memories from his childhood, leading to one of the film's best scenarios as the adult Carrey embodies Joel's three-year-old self.
Jim Carrey is a hit-or-miss actor for me, but I've always admired him for his willingness to explore roles beyond the hyperactive wild men who have been so lucrative for him in the past. He does good work as Joel, a man so weighed down with his own disappointments he almost seems not to exist at times. Winslet continues to prove herself one of the best actresses of her generation, making Clementine complex, difficult, and strangely likable. Strong supporting performances come in from Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, and Kirsten Dunst as Wilkinson's support staff, who are just as lost in the romantic game as Joel and Clementine are. Wood's creepy yet pathetic Patrick tries to romance Winslet using the remains of her relationship with Joel. Ruffalo and Dunst have a thing going, but the deep admiration she harbors for the boss becomes more pronounced as the film wears on.
Eventually, we end up back where we started, as Joel and Clementine meet again for the first time. Kaufmann wisely avoids any sentiments of destiny in the film's concluding momentsindeed, it is arguable that the couple could be headed for heartbreak all over again. But then, there is a lot of truth in that saying of loving and losing.