Movie Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I absolutely love to see Jim Carey in a serious role. I think that Kate Winslet is beautiful. Charlie Kaufman (screenwriter for Adaptation and Being John Malkovich among others) is brilliant. And I think that Michel Gondry is an absolute genius. It also has Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst stoned in her underwear (jumping on the bed). Thus, to me, Eternal Sunshine is the perfect movie.
I was amazed to have some people tell me that they didn’t understand Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That is was stupid, and didn’t make sense. I pity these people, because they have missed a great work of art.
The story-line (which I’ll admit is sometimes hard to follow, but not that bad) is that Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) meet and fall in love. Then, due to various relationship problems, and Clementine’s tendency to make rash decisions, she goes to a company called Lacuna to have her memories of Joel erased. What people seem to not really get is that Joel later has his memory erased as well. The mixed up, crazy, dream-like sequences and jumbled order of events is part of this memory erasure.
The neat thing is that in the end, after they have erased each other from their lives, they still have a burning desire to return to the place where they met. They come together again, with no knowledge of having met before.
It’s a tearjerker, but also a thinker. It brings up questions: would I want to completely erase a person from my life and memory? Would there be any last moments of regret? Would we find each other again in the end? Is there such a thing as fate and are coincidences more than just that?
I think everyone should see this movie. Please, if you have not seen it, buy it, rent it, borrow it from a friend. Try to watch and understand. If you don’t get it, oh well. But you had the chance.
Filed under: Movies