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Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind - Special Edition (Two Disc Set) [2004]
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exquisite mind game, not for casual moviegoers
Review date: 2007-11-28 Rating: 10 out of 10
Yeah, "Eternal Sunshine" is a mess, but what a sweet and beautiful mess it is. It might be quite a difficult watch for some, but ultimately rewarding if you invest enough time and patience to sit through. Somewhat reminiscent of an Andrei Tarkovsky, Wachowski Bros, David Lynch and Christopher Nolan film, our protagonist Joel bounces between twisting realities under a highly non-linear narrative structure.
As I always say, fragmented storytelling is not a cinch. Rather, it is a high-wire act. On the page, it might read well; but on the screen, if you don't put everything on proper places, you will run the risk of losing the viewer pretty quickly. Thankfully, that doesn't happen in "Eternal Sunshine" due to the magical touch of two talented mind-gamers: writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry, both like messing with expectations as well as human psyche. Take Kaufman's "Being John Malkovich", "Human Nature" and "Adaptation", you'll get what I mean.
The premise of the film is based on a breakthrough technique (Lacuna) to expunge unpleasant memories off people's brains. Being engaged in a flawed relationship destined to fail at the very beginning, Joel wakes up one day and finds Clem left him. He realizes that she had him erased from her memories. Love-torn, confused and enraged, he decides to do the very same thing rather than living with the pang of losing and missing her. Then when he trapped in sleep, we take up a pleasing albeit mind-bending journey into the depths of Joel's subconscious. We see their relationship within a time loop: in reverse-order flashbacks starting with the most painful memories of the breakup and working forward to the earlier, sweeter ones. But, as Joel relives his moments with Clem, he realizes that the good times he had with her are so precious to him. So he tries to put her into other parts of his memory so that she will never to totally forgotten.
Overall, "Eternal Sunshine" is an offbeat experience and definitely a triumph of romantic sci/fi subgenre. Highly recommended.
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Reviews
Wasted talent
Review date: 2006-04-06 Rating: 4 out of 10
The premise is intriguing. Girl gets tired of a declining relationship and has all memory of boyfriend erased. Boyfriend finds out and decides he can't live with that: gets himself erased as well. In the middle of the procedure, which he experiences as a kind of dream, he becomes lucid, realizes what's going on and decides he doesn't want this to happen. But it's too late; despite all his efforts his memory is erased. Fate in the shape of an accidental post-erasure meeting and the other actions of other characters involved twists the plot around and brings them together again.
The cast: a director's dream. Jim Carrey, Kate Winslett, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo. How can you go wrong? Well, you can, and something did. I've been trying to work out what, because there are so many factors that nuked this movie.
First of all what went right: Carrey and the rest of the cast were amazing, even if most of them never got a chance to actually evince what you might call 'depth of character'. Carrey and Winslett do get that chance in the first part, where 'Joel' and 'Clementine' meet again, and those few minutes alone make the movie worth watching; after that it's mostly downhill: the story falls apart in the same way that 'Being John Malkovich' ultimately does, except that here at least the story has somewhere to go, though the writer, director and editor seem to have no idea about how to get there, but ultimately fumble themselves through to an ending.
There were some elements with incredible potential: for example the whole dream-like erasure process, with the built-in flashes of lucidity, followed by lapses back into non-awareness. Anybody who's had lucid dreams will recognize the process. Then there's what amounts to a mental chase and battle of wits, as Joel tries to hide his memories in places where the hi-tech backed pursuit cannot find it. The whole thing throws up a whole plethora of troublesome questions related to cognitive research and philosophy, and especially the nature of 'identity'. The suffocating predicament Joel got himself into (by surrendering control of his mind to someone else) and can't get himself our of. The twists and turns of contingency as, despite all this, it all appears to turn out all right.
The flaw at the heart of this movie is that someone forgot what story to tell, and instead tried to tell too many, and in the process the movie lost its soul. The editing completed the job that the directing started. It was so VISIBLE as to become detrimental to the actors: in its contrived cleverness it erased much of the depth they could have brought to the characters. Sometimes I had the feeling that there actually WAS something more to this moment or that; but then it usually got zapped, as if the editor was chasing that precious something down like Stan was doing to Joel's memories.
The cinematography was trying to be so clever that one could almost touch it. In conjunction with the awful editing, almost every 'cut-to' became a painful jarring of this viewer's attempt to relate to the story and the characters, and made the thing into a cinematographic, rather than an emotional experience.
Without this, maybe the other problems of the movie would have been non-existent. I don't know, because the movie is as it is, and we can play 'what if' games forever and speculate into a vacuum. But I'd like to think that maybe in the hands of someone less keen to 'make a movie' and more interested in people and telling a story, we might actually have some emotional understanding of why Joel and Clementine needed to be together, and why it was right that in the end they were. Don't misunderstand me: give me ANY reason for an upbeat ending and I'll embrace it joyfully. So why, in this instance, did I feel that the ending was tacked-on, contrived, artificial? The back-together-despite-all-the-odds simply rings false, if only because the only reason why they are is contingency, sheer dumb luck, twists of fate. They get a second chance and maybe they'll work it out this time. But did they do anything to earn it? In particular, did Clementine, who evinces no sign of actually thinking that there was something wrong with her method to opt out of a situation with the minimum of pain? Do these people actually love each other, and if they do, is that love enough or shown as even indicatively sufficient to bridge the gap they've created in their past and through their actions of surrendering their power of their minds to someone else?
Finally, there is something offensive about the general attitude by director and editor towards the actors: in this case a dream-cast, whose potential was mostly edited out of existence. There is a school of film-makers who see actors as a kind of cinematographic element, like a piece of landscape or a prop. As long as they perform the correct motions and say the right things at some time or during some take, there's probably a way to edit it together so that it looks right. That's OK if the actors actually need such treatment. There is another school who believes that actors are to be considered not just essential, but next to the director the dominant visible participants in any decent story-telling process. To demean them into becoming just pieces in a mosaic of self-important film-making is degrading. That Carrey, Winslett and the rest of the cast still manage to shine is a testimony to their professionalism and consummate skill. That aspect was the one truly bright spark in an otherwise disappointing flick.
2/5 purely because of the actors
Eternally bright
Review date: 2006-01-08 Rating: 10 out of 10
Charlie Kaufman is known for creating films that bend the mind -- "Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation," "Human Nature." But he takes a slightly different turn in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," a sort of romantic dark comedy that raises questions about memory and identity. It may not be the best of Kaufman's work, but it's in some ways the most endearing.
Uptight Joel (Jim Carrey) is shocked to learn that his likably flaky ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has taken unusual measures, post-breakup. She's having her memories of him erased from her brain at Lacuna Inc. When he learns WHY she broke up with him (she thought he was boring), he gets mad and decides to have the same thing done to himself.
So a group of offbeat techies and doctors (Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood and Kirsten Dunst) begin to erase the memories of Clementine from Joel's brain (Wood's character also tries to use Joel's memories to seduce Clementine). Problem is, his brain doesn't want to let them go. It pokes Clementine into parts of his memory where she doesn't belong, so he won't have to let go. And viewing the memories makes him fall in love all over again...
"Dark romantic comedy" is the closest thing that "Eternal Sunshine" has to a description. Like Kaufman's other films, it's funny in a subtle way, and more obviously sweet and romantic. Not to mention thought-provoking. If you could erase unpleasant memories, would you do it, if it changed the person you were? If we get rid of the pain, do we also get rid of the joy?
Michel Gondry is best known for his work on Bjork, Radiohead and White Stripes music videos -- deliciously strange ones. Somehow, he fits perfectly into directing "Eternal Sunshine." A trip through a person's brain is a hard thing to manage, but he does it -- surreal little images like a teeny tiny Winslet and Carrey bathing in a kitchen sink, or lying on the ice. It's weird, and it works. At the same time, he can capture more mundane moments well.
Jim Carrey gives what may be his best "serious" role ever, as the conflicted, lovelorn Joel. Kate Winslet's Clementine breaks the mold of "romantic comedy heroine" with her free-spirited wackiness. Together, they make a flawed couple that you really want to see together. And Elijah Wood takes what could have been an empty role and turns Patrick into a rather pitiful, lonely figure, rather than a 2-D creep.
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is not the best from Charlie Kaufman's fertile brain, but this melancholy dark comedy is well worth checking out. A wonderful, prismatic film.
Marvellous
Review date: 2005-12-27 Rating: 10 out of 10
Fantastic screenplay, with twists here and there in the plot. A highly imaginative film all round, which is also a very sincere study of relationships! Very natural and unpretentious acting.
Astoundingly original
Review date: 2005-08-31 Rating: 10 out of 10
I had heard great things about this movie and when I finally saw it I was completely blown away. It's brilliantly inventive, with the idea of Joel (Jim Carrey) trying to erase the memory of his girlfriend (Kate Winslet) but his mind tries to stop him. There's much more to it than that but there's no point in spoiling it. This is one you can't really describe but you have to see it.
Carrey gives the performance of his career, and is far away from his more 'zany' roles like in Ace Ventura or Liar Liar. He is truly believable as Joel and Kate Winslet was also a revelation, with excellent chemistry between them. The support cast is also great, with Tom Wilkinson and Kirsten Dunst (I love her) particularly standing out.
It's definitely the best non-action film I've seen for a long time. I say 'non-action' because Eternal Sunshine doesn't really slot into a particular genre, with elements of comedy, drama, romance, sci-fi, fantasy all thrown in for good measure. But if there was a genre called 'Fantastic' then this would fit right in it!
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Tom Wilkinson
Jim Carrey
Kirsten Dunst
Elijah Wood
Kate Winslet
Creators:
Jim Carrey (Primary Contributor)
Kate Winslet (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Momentum Pictures
Manufacturer: Momentum Pictures
EAN: 5060049147116
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: Anamorphic, Box set, PAL, Special Edition,
Release date: 2005-04-25
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 103 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2004
Language: English (Original Language)