Shy and awkward Joel meets a wonderful girl in Clementine:
she’s impulsive, vibrant, and full of life. Their relationship is like everyone
else’s: not perfect but can be worked through. That is why Joel is stunned to
discover that after a lover’s spat, Clementine has a procedure that erases Joel
and their tumultuous relationship completely from her mind. Out of desperation,
Joel goes to the inventor of the process, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak, so that he can
get the same treatment. But halfway through the procedure, as his memories of
Clementine begin to disappear one by one, Joel realises that he still loves her
and he begins to fight tooth and nail in a battle in his mind to keep a hold of
those memories.
From the writer of such memorable and off-centre screenplays as
Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is a lovely film with a
romantic story that is both as simple and as complicated as “opposites
attract”. It features some great dramatic performances from its two romantic
leads and is packed with some very fine direction and editing. The entire film
is wonderfully weird and off-centre, making your head spin a little in the
process of watching it. It’s brilliant.
Shy and awkward Joel meets a wonderful
girl in Clementine: she’s impulsive, vibrant, and full of life. Their
relationship is like everyone else’s: not perfect but can be worked through.
That is why Joel is stunned to discover that after a lover’s spat, Clementine
has a procedure that erases Joel and their tumultuous relationship completely
from her mind. Out of desperation, Joel goes to the inventor of the process,
Dr. Howard Mierzwiak, so that he can get the same treatment. But halfway
through the procedure, as his memories of Clementine begin to disappear one by
one, Joel realises that he still loves her and he begins to fight tooth and
nail in a battle in his mind to keep a hold of those memories.
The film is put
together in a somewhat jagged way to reflect the jagged process of the erasing
procedure. One minute you’re inside one memory, the next you’re in an entirely
different one and all the time there are elements of those former memories that
trickle through into existing ones. It’s a wonderfully weird and confusing film
to watch, which is after all half the fun.
Jim Carey stars as Joel in one of
the best dramatic performances I’ve seen him do. Eternal Sunshine was to Jim what Stranger Than Fiction was to Will Ferrell in my eyes. We
stereotypically know Jim as the charismatic and out-of-control funny man, but
here he delivers a performance that is subdued, awkward, and really not sure of
his feet. He was captivating to watch.
Kate Winslet is the charismatic and
slightly crazy one in this movie. She gives a performance that’s vibrant,
spontaneous, and at the same time sort of sad and bedraggled-ly seductive. I
love her.
Starring Elijah Wood, Daivd Cross, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Jane
Adams, and Tom Wilkinson, Eternal
Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is a wonderful film filled with drama, romance,
delightful jaggedness, bizarre love triangles, and the occasional bit of
comedy. It’s a very interesting and delightfully off-centre film.
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