| Joel (Jim Carrey) is stunned to discover that his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has had her memories of their tumultuous relationship erased. Out of desperation, he contracts the inventor of the process, Dr. Howard Mierzwaik (Tom Wilkinson), to have Clementine removed from his own memory. But as Joel's memories progressively disappear, he begins to rediscover their earlier passion. From deep within the recesses of his brain, Joel attempts to escape the procedure. As Dr. Mierzwiak and his crew (Kristen Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood) chase him through the maze of his memories, it's clear that Joel just can't get her out of his head. [TRAILER]
STEVEN
SNYDER'S REVIEW
What if your worst memories could be erased, the moments when you felt the most pain, humiliation or guilt? Is your brain working now - filtering through all the bad moments you would go back and zap first? For me, that bad memory exists in a dimly-lit hallway, outside a locked door; the end of a five-year relationship. What is it for you: A fallout with a lover, friend, a death, or a goodbye?
But there's a catch: Along with that bad memory will go its good counterparts. The pain that person caused will be absent, but so will the happiness that person brought to your life. A complete erase, reset and restart.
This is the central theme of director Michel Gondry ("Human Nature") and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's ("Adaptation") "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," a dizzying film that pulses with confusion, fantasy and heart, asking questions about memory and the nature of love that one can't help but apply to his own life.
More than once I thought I had the tone and direction of this film figured out, only to be slapped back into place by the incomparable creativity of Kaufman. It is rare that a screenwriter becomes a draw for a movie, but I knew the instant I saw Kaufman's name associated with this material that it would be something intelligent, memorable, edgy and off the beaten path. Talk about an understatement.
The prologue of the film witnesses a day in the life of the introverted Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), chronicling his first encounter with the hyper and manic Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) whom he initially sees at a restaurant and later gets to know on the subway. Almost instantly they seem to share a common bond.
But before we become comfortable with this routine story, an image of Joel crying in his car propels us into a second subplot, where he and Clementine are at the tail end of a ruined relationship. They have split up, are upset with each other, and Clementine hires a service to erase Joel's memory from her brain.
Joel, in retaliation, goes in to erase her memory, but the erasure process hits a few snags. While technician Stan (Mark Ruffalo) attempts to erase each instance of Clementine in Joel's mind, his brain works backwards, focusing on both the sweet as well as the heartbreaking memories that now are all that remain of their relationship.
As he fondly looks back, Joel suddenly decides he no longer wants the procedure and this leads to the film's most absurd and enchanting portion, where Joel leads Stan in a game of cat-and-mouse through his subconscious, guiding Clementine from one memory to the next in the hope Stan will be unable to erase her completely.
Confused yet? I don't blame you. This is a wild ride, and one that is made even more complex by Gondry's schizophrenic direction and Philip Stockton's disorienting sound design. Absorbing "Eternal Sunshine" is to journey inside Joel's subconscious and to be part of his warped memories that are being manipulated, distorted and destroyed one by one. It is also to be part of his subjectivity, and to witness the layers of pain peel away until finally the essence of his initial love for Clementine reemerges from the depths. He sees again what he saw at the beginning, and suddenly does not want it to fade into oblivion.
Carrey, again in an impressive dramatic turn, is the key to this movie. He must find the balance of a man confused, yet excited; goofy yet empathetic. I'm not sure what more an actor can do to receive recognition, but Carrey delivers something here that not many actors could pull off. Put someone too serious in this role and the movie loses its humanism; Put someone too goofy in and Kaufman's absurdist humor overwhelms the film's ideas.
Be warned, you'll be disoriented in moments of this movie. But then again, that's the point. We are seeing Joel's life through memories, as he remembers it, reduced to the few sporadic images and sounds that, for all of us, become the foundation of who we were, and are.
Only in the film's last few minutes do "Eternal Sunshine's" various story threads finally coalesce, and we start to appreciate the intellectual depth of Kaufman and Gondry's vision. Here is a movie about memory, yes, but also about isolation, regret, hope, and the philosophical possibility of a present in which we have forgotten the past and foreknow the future.
It is an ode to all those who have loved, lost, but would do it all over again without regret; to those who believe the good in life is almost always worth the bad.
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