Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Fresh and surprising with great script, dialogues and cut. The cast is also fantastic.

***Inventive drama/romance with Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet and so much more***

A man (Jim Carrey) discovers that his babe (Kate Winslet) had her memory of their relationship removed via the medical procedures of an innovative company. He decides to get the surgery as well, but as the technicians (Mark Ruffalo & Elijah Wood) conduct the procedure he changes his mind! Can he escape with his memory intact and possibly save the relationship? Tom Wilkinson plays the doctor and Kirsten Dunst the secretary.

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004) is a drama/sci-fi/romance hybrid that’s so confusing during its first half that it fails to captivate (and is even annoying) but, if you persevere, everything starts making sense by the midpoint, ushering in an entertaining and insightful second half. The movie’s depth naturally makes it improve on repeat viewings wherein it’s more understandable as you put the pieces together.

Viewers who complain that a certain person is too dramatic, selfish and high maintenance to put up with for more than a month didn’t get the closing moral, which is both true and profound: Couples can (and should) realize the flaws of their mate, which they genuinely don't like, but it's "Okay." That's true love.

There are also unexpected peripheral gems on unethical behavior in a supposedly professional environment, secret relationships, discarding unwanted skeletons, and more. Lastly, curvy, vivacious Winslet shines and it’s nice to see Carrey in a serious role.

The film runs 1 hour, 48 minutes, and was shot in the New York City area (Yonkers, Montauk, Mount Vernon, Manhattan and Brooklyn).

GRADE: A-

This was one of the first movies I really loved. Some moments are especially beautiful and I appreciate the folks who put in the labor to make this. Thank you

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is a movie that uses the fragility of memory and hurt of love to show the desperate measures taken by a couple who decide to break up. After two years of living together, Introverted Joel Barrish ( Jim Carey ) and extrovert Clementine Kruczynski ( Kate Winslet ) undertake extreme procedures to erase any memory of each other. 

What director Michel Gondry and Writer Charlie Kaufman have created is a movie designed to slowly release forgotten incidents and emotions as the audience discover the film is running in reverse. Bearing witness to love’s decay the audience are thrown sidelines with the introduction of Patrick ( Elijah Wood ) and Stan ( Mark Ruffalo ). Both Patrick and Stan work for Lacuna a private medical company with some rather dodgy practices regarding memory erasure. Along with Patrick and Stan, Mary ( Kirsten Dunst ) Stan’s girlfriend is also a work colleague and joins the other two when they are tasked with erasing any memory of Clementine from Joel’s mind. Patrick however uses information provided to Lacuna by both Joel and Clementine to manipulate Clementine in an attempt to get her to fall in love with him.

What ensues is a battle of the mind to try and save their relationship after discovering that all was not as bad as the couple believed. But with each recalled memory there is a doomed ending that ends up being erased. The only hope is to try and hide Clementine in an earlier non related memory in Joel’s mind as Lacuna remove all traces of each other. The climax of the film comes with a surprise that complicates any post mind erasing procedures. 

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” evokes real devastation in lost love and tells a fantasy tale of how we all try to erase those hurtful memories. However, after everything, our memories are all we really have, they make us who we are, once they are gone, we ourselves are surely gone.

This is a really weird movie. I had to watch it about 3 or 4 times before you really figure it out. It's a good concept but a bit confusing sometimes.

When the shy “Joel” (Jim Carrey) encounters the blue-haired “Clementine” (Kate Winslet) he immediately falls for her and embarks on a life-changing romance. Thing is, I think she finds him just a bit too dull and so makes arrangements to have him erased from her memory! Whilst he is going through her stuff he discovers a card that declares she’s had him wiped. Despondent, he goes to see the same doctor (Tom Wilkinson) and opts for the same procedure. He has to garner together all their memorabilia so they can map his brain then “Stan” (Mark Ruffalo) and his sidekick “Patrick” (Elijah Wood) can come in while he’s asleep and do some cerebral zapping. Thing is, though, it seems that this couple have put in a few safeguards in the form of hidden memories and that leads to both of them having a series of entertaining escapades as they try to stay one step ahead of the eradication process whilst also trying to remember or decide whether they like each other or want to be together at all! It’s this cat and mouse process that makes both realise what life might be like without the other! There’s a twist, too, though. The drippy “Patrick” has also taken a bit of a shine to her and so has been using the memories of ‘Joel” to muddy the waters of her affections. Meantime, there is the doctor’s secretary “Mary” (Kirsten Dunst) whom we also realise has skin in this rather complex game of truth or dare (to tell the truth)… I was never really a fan of Carrey but he’s on good form here, gelling well with Winslet in this quirky story of loneliness and reticence that allows each of the characters to have their moment in the sun. This is a creatively constructed drama that mixes chronologies and timelines to keep us guessing as to what’s real, what’s imaginary and what’s just wishful thinking as we see their relationship play out through multiple, rapidly evaporating, scenarios. Carrey’s portrayal juggles well the frustrated with the entangled and it does all make you wonder if it might ever be better to be able to compartmentalise our thoughts and reminiscences and then conveniently hit delete - either arbitrarily or together.