Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the latest bit of genius to be spun out of the warped mind of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the mastermind behind such films as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Directed by Mike Gordry, who also shares writing credits, the film explores typically Kaufman-esque themes of unconsciousness but also delves into the nature of human relationships in a way that Kaufman has never done before.
Filing into the theater, most of the audience knows that the film has something to do with mind erasing, but if you're in the audience you might be surprised to see where the film takes you from there. Suffice it to say, this is not a simple, linear story, and these are not flat characters. Get ready for twists, hairpin turns and a few moments of blurriness where your eyes well up with tears. The film opens with a shot of Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) as he drools on his pillow, a typical Kaufman-esque lovable loser, and the action progresses from there in beautiful and grandly cinematic shots. But then, after about 15 minutes of what you thought was the movie, the credits roll. It is at about this time that you realize that, not unlike Joel, you are about to get your head seriously messed with. If you thought you were going to watch a one-trick movie, something high-concept but uninventive about time travel or space age technology, you can now consider yourself corrected.
The basic plot goes like so: Guy and girl date for a year, get on each other's nerves, girl has guy erased from her memory, guy decides to have her erased in return. But wait! At the last minute, he decides he wants to keep her, painful memories and all. Did I mention that the majority of the action takes place in the guy's unconscious brain? In short, it's your typical love story.
At its core, Eternal Sunshine is a lot like an episode of The Twilight Zone. Just like the old sci-fi show, the plot here is predicated on the existence of something strange and creepy -- in this case memory erasure -- made creepier still because everyone else around you doesn't bat an eyelash over it. In Eternal Sunshine, the creepy factor takes the form of a medical office called "Lacuna," a word that means "a missing piece," which is run by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). His office provides what he considers a valuable service: the opportunity to move on from a painful event or, to put it more bluntly, the technology to wipe your brain matter clean of any trace of an upsetting memory.
The Lacuna clinic and its good doctor are realized onscreen in such a way that they are made doubly disturbing. Instead of a sleek, futuristic office covered in metallic surfaces, it's just a regular tacky looking doctor's office, with fake wood paneling and a cramped waiting room headed by a regular looking pudgy middle-aged guy, the kind of doctor who would hand you a lollipop after your examination. It's all too real. The only weird part is that they have the power to permanently erase your memories. When Joel asks nervously, "Will I get brain damage?" Dr. Mierzwiak answers, "Well, technically Joel, the procedure is brain damage."
Jim Carrey, whose trademark canned antics can border on the childish and annoying, seems to have found his match in leading lady, Kate Winslet. Who would guess that this demure English rose would be able to out-quirk the out-quirkable Jim Carrey, a man who made his name on sticking French fries up his nose and talking with his butt cheeks? Yet she does it, through a character named Clementine, who sports four different hair colors throughout the film and has somewhat of a fondness for the drink. Clementine wears the pants in this relationship, camouflage cargo pants with Tibetan patterned hippie sweaters and newsboy caps to be specific, and for once, Jim Carrey is given a role in which he is relegated to being the regular guy wowed by someone else's overwhelming vitality. It's positively refreshing, and it gives Carrey a chance to really act -- not just be Jim Carrey in some thinly drawn movie role, a la The Truman Show and Bruce Almighty, his only other vaguely actor-ly movies to date, save Man in the Moon. Suffice it to say, Carrey turns in a standout performance, imbuing his boring guy persona with enough charm and likeability to convince you that Clementine and Joel, unlikely pair that they are, really are good together.
Back in the real world of the film, Elijah Wood is as beady-eyed as ever as Patrick -- the assistant to Dr. Mierzwiak, who falls in love with the sleeping Clementine while she has her memory erased and then uses all of Joel's lines to make her fall for him in the most warped case of identify theft ever seen. He is joined by the lovely Kirsten Dunst, who plays Mary, the philosophy-quoting receptionist at Lacuna who fields calls from people wishing to forget everything from ex-lovers to dead pets.
The film unfolds through fleeting images, flashbacks, sped up time elapse shots and scenes shot from unusual angles -- like the beautiful overhead shot of Joel and Clementine lying on their backs on a frozen pond, pointing straight at the audience as they identify the constellations overhead. And then there are scenes like that in the final shot: the two star-crossed lovers, playing on a snowy beach, the world completely silent but for the soundtrack of a tinkling piano in the background, fade to white. It's oh so very French
The film's wordy title is based on an Alexander Pope quote that is wordier still: "How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."
In translation: Ignorance is bliss. But is ignorance real life? Eternal Sunshine asks such questions, but what is more, it manages to be so powerful because it asks the kinds of questions that can get to any person who has ever had their heart broken, regretted anything, wanted to start over or just wanted to be a kid again. Depending on who you are, the movie's ending is either a glimmer of hope, or a depressing death knell, but whatever you decide, you'll be bound to agree that Eternal Sunshine hits home -- and it hurts real good.
