Director: Michel Gondry
Writer(s): Charlie Kaufman

Cast:
Jim Carrey – Joel Barish
Kate Winslet – Clementine Kruczynski
Gerry Robert Byrne – Train Conductor
Elijah Wood – Patrick
Thomas Jay Ryan - Frank
Mark Ruffalo -Stan

Jim Carrey in the Title Role

Preamble:
Charlie Kaufman, author of ‘Adaptation’ and ‘Being John Malkovich’, seems to have an obsession with portraying the internal struggles first and foremost, but Eternal Sunshine stands as a triumph in the areas where the other two films failed. Here, the plots don’t meander and the resolution is complete, not rushed.

Plot Points:

The story of what happens when people who have fallen out of love, try to use technology to forget they ever met their exes. Joel and Clementine decide to erase their failed relationship from their respective memories.

The Meat:

Like Kaufman’s other films, ‘Eternal Sunshine is set largely inside the mind of one of its characters’, in this case Joel. The surreal nature of his mind’s is played out with hilarious use of special effects to make him a small player in his own recollections, which go all the way back to childhood. In the real world, the intertwined relationships of the men and women conducting the operation go on, and we gradually learn the corporal background of the relationship at the center of the film. The scenes of their early awkwardness are honest and natural and reveal some similarities between the two that don’t seem to be there at first. Clementine appears to be less nervous than Joel for example, but in reality she simply disguises it with aggression. We also find them both to be severely dysfunctional in certain social settings, a perfect fit if for no other reason than the fact that their shortcomings complement each other’s so well. Naturally the large problems they have on their own are revealed in pettiness towards each other, but until then it doesn’t matter.

The revelation of the film’s second act–as we watch not only the problems that caused the end of the relationship but the attempt to preserve some of what turned out to be not-so-bad memories– is a truth that motivates the title and the third act. No matter how much we may wish to erase some things from the past, you can’t throw out the baby with the bath water, and the mistakes and trials are just the price of admission, not a sum of the whole experience if seen with objectivity. On the brink of losing that experience in totality, the characters realize it, running from the procedure inside of Joel’s mind in a last effort to hold onto even the smallest samples of their time together.

This decision-making process in the conclusion is appropriate and resonates the truth at the center of the film: the brain has little value in matters of the heart. The eternal sunshine of a spotless mind is the ultimate commentary on ignorance – not knowing and thus not missing what you’ve never ventured to have. As a punch line punctuation, all but the last five minutes are presented as proof that they shouldn’t do what they do in the last 5 minutes.
One of the best movies of the decade.

Movie – 10/10

DVD – 9/10