Movie Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Stars (Out of 10): 9.5

One Word Summary: Marvelous

Movie Details: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Drama | Comedy | Romance MPAA RATING R for language, some drug and sexual content 108 minutes | Color USA WRITTEN BY Charlie Kaufman (also story) Michel Gondry (story) Pierre Bismuth (story) DIRECTED BY Michel Gondry THEATRICAL RELEASE Mar 19, 2004   Relevant Sites: IMDB Official Movie Website Watch The Movie Trailers Shopping: Shop Amazon for items related to this movie. Shop for movie posters at AllPosters

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" Review:

"How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."
-- Alexander Pope, 'Eloisa to Abelard'

            Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is about Joel, a boring and dreary guy, who meets Clementine, a crazy, spontaneous girl, and falls in love. After their relationship falls through, Clementine decides on a whim to undergo a procedure to have all her memories of their relationship erased from her mind. After seeing that the love of his life doesn't even remember him anymore, Joel decides to undergo the same procedure. Most of the movie takes place in Joel's mind, and it follows their relationship from his most recent memories to his oldest memories; soon Joel realizes that he doesn't want to forget Clementine, so he tries to hide her in strange parts of his memory where she doesn't belong.

            Charlie Kaufman is simply the most creative, original, and crooked mind in Hollywood; to anyone who says mainstream American film is dull, recycled garbage, Charlie Kaufman is our proof to the contrary. His talent was exposed to the world with Being John Malkovich (not one of my favorites) and was shown once again in Adaptation (the most creative movie I've ever seen). Kaufman is the king of the head trip, and Eternal Sunshine is both a trip into Joel's head and a product of Kaufman's brilliant one.

Compared to Kaufman's other movies, Eternal Sunshine is probably the best; my biggest complaint with Adaptation was after his carefully crafted and traveled characters made it through his maze of a screenplay, they just stopped at the end. Eternal Sunshine is still a maze, but after it's all said and done, Kaufman wraps it up in one of those bows from the Jaguar commercials.

            Eternal Sunshine is also Kaufman's most direct film; Being John Malkovich was so crazy I'm still lost, and I enjoyed Adaptation for the concept, which still awes me. Eternal Sunshine has a deeper meaning, that to erase one's memory is akin to erasing one's life in total (and that if you erase a memory, you're bound to make the same mistake again), but its focus on the characters as opposed to abstract craziness, makes it almost as pleasant as it is marvelous.

            Not only is Eternal Sunshine a work of art on paper, director Michel Gondry brings the screenplay to life with stunning visuals. In the movie, the world is deteriorating around Joel's character as his memory is erased (people begin to disappear, houses disappear wall by wall, and his surroundings are sucked away as if by a vacuum). To me, the movies that live by the quality of their special effects are less impressive than movies like this that are only enriched by them. The cinematography is magnificent in the way memories are strung together as if Joel and Clementine are running through animation cells rather than a film scene.

            I'm reluctant to compare any movie to Memento, the ultimate think movie, but Eternal Sunshine's chronology is similar. I don't want to say where the first scene of the movie (Joel and Clementine have just returned from their first date, and while Clementine runs up to her apartment to grab something, Elijah Woods' character knocks on the car window and asks what Joel is doing there) fits into the chronology (that's half the fun), but for most of the movie we're seeing Joel's memories in reverse. Other scenes, like the black-and-white ones in Memento, go forward in time; at the end of the movie, the two dimensions meet when the circumstances of the entire story are revealed, leaving us only to marvel.

            In all honesty, this isn't a new role for Jim Carrey; combine his performances in The Truman Show and The Majestic, add in a little 'comedy Carrey,' and you have Joel. Does that make his performance less impressive, absolutely not, maybe this time though it might be more appreciated.

Kate Winslet gives her second great performance in two years (The Life of David Gale), and if this was award season, I'm sure there would be Oscar buzz around Tom Wilkinson (after losing for In The Bedroom) as well as Jim Carrey. Dunst, Ruffalo and Wood provide great comedic relief, which is a compliment to any actor who stars next to a former stand-up comedian.

The Bottom Line is that saying Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind is for everyone is like saying everyone should eat Cobb Salad; some people just like it simple. For those of you willing to be exotic, Eternal Sunshine is miles beyond some of the fast food at theatres these days. (I'm gonna stop with the food analogy now, it's making me hungry.) Eternal Sunshine is simply a great movie, it's funny, it's dramatic, it's extremely well made, and if you're not averse to it, this movie will make you think… and that's something you don't get to do at the theatre too often!