Eternal sunshine of Kaufman's fanbase

Rating: 6/10 (10 July 2005)

ESOTSM continues Kaufman's trend of having a stunningly original idea (or series of ideas) but being unable to come up with an ending.
Firstly, it's a little shaky that Joel is simply able to plant a command in his own head to 'meet her in Montauk' before the erasure completes. Fair enough, he goes. She sees him. Initiates contact as before. It's do-able, but not rock solid.
Second, and worse, is the - seemingly insignificant and diverting - subplot of Mary and her boss's previous romance coming to the fore, causing her to send all the tapes out thus enabling Joel and Clementine to say what the hell, let's go for it anyway. It all happens because the boss's wife happens to get suspicious and show up at Joel's house right when her husband happens to be making out with Mary. Again, it 'aint rock solid.
It's an ending essentially birthed by two coincidences (arguably). The fact that one of the coincidences is plonked at the start of the film doesn't alter the fact this is a chance ending.
Let's back up. I wouldn't really care if I felt more involved. I'd suspend disbelief more. I hate nitpicking, but the reason I'm doing it is the film failed to move me.
What is it? A comedy? Nope. Is it a drama? Kind of. But it isn't very dramatic, or, it fails to fully exploit dramatic opportunities in the script. What's a good drama? American Beauty. You care for every single character in that film. Empathy and curiosity.
And this? Well, I was curious, sure. It's a clever idea executed in a clever way. In fact this film has clever written all over it. Like Kaufman's previous work. But BJM made me laugh. Adaptation had humour and drama and characters you cared about. This...doesn't.
It's very difficult to pin it down, as fundamentally we have a stunning idea, a good script, presented in a style totally befitting it, great performances...and I just didn't care. I've seen it twice.
Adaptation and BJM both had lovable losers. You want John Cusack's puppeteer to succeed. You want Nic Cage's Kaufman to find happiness and overcome his angst. Jim Carey's Joel? Uh...I'll get back to you.
Jim definitely can't be faulted. It's just that, in our attempt to empathize, we have surprisingly little to go on. He's a quiet guy who falls for a quirky self-confessed f*cked up girl. They have a series of generic boyfriend/girlfriend times together which we the audience see in reverse order (p.s. generic to the power of Kaufman's quirkiness...but still generic).
Thing is, the relationship is so obviously flaky to the core that who cares if they give it another shot in the end? Not I. Give it a month and see whether they're together.
All of which is a very long winded way of repeating what I've already said - this film didn't involve me.
I know it has a great 'point', but so does Mr and Mrs Smith and that was one of the most horrendous films I've ever seen. A 'point' simply isn't enough. Neither is a clever idea.