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Review -- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson
Canadian Rating: 14A
4 stars out of 4 (Excellent)
By Albert Tam
What would you do if someone you really loved broke your heart? Cry probably and try and move on and remember the good times, forget the bad.
That’s the main idea of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and it tells the story of Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), an anti-socialite who falls madly in love with a woman named Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) and then is devastated when she leaves him. To make matters worse, he finds out that she’s had a procedure by a doctor (Tom Wilkinson) and some young punk hooligans (Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood) to have him permanently erased from her memory and his fury drives him to rid of her exactly the same way. The twist? That as he lies sedated in bed while they erase his memories, he realizes that there are some memories of her that he’d rather keep and cherish for himself, but it’s a little hard to let them know when you’re trapped inside your own mind.
Music video director Michel Gondry helms this feature and if you think this is a special effects driven movie, it is not. It’s a camera trick driven movie that is simply stunning to watch (you all should youtube this man). One scene has Barish running up and down the avenue trying to catch up to Kruczynski but for whatever reason, he keeps winding back in the same spot on the street and she keeps walking away in both directions no matter how much he wants to catch up to her – the image is permanent in his memory, and thus unalterable. To achieve this shot, Gondry films Carrey running down the avenue after Winslet, calls cut, films him doing the same thing again but with Winslet even further away, and then reverses the image like a mirror to make it seem as if no matter which way he runs, she keeps walking away. It’s assembled brilliantly into one take, but see if you can catch where the cuts are merged together. That’s just one trick I understood after my fifth viewing. Everything else is still a mystery.
The movie was written by Charlie Kaufman and his distinct odd flair is very prevalent in this picture, but unlike his other movies, I found this one to have the greatest heart and be the most touching thanks to Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey. I still feel that Carrey deserved an Oscar nomination for his performance (I think it’s the best of his career so far), but alas, I was wrong and the only acting nod went to Winslet who is brilliant nonetheless. This is a difficult movie to act in, because memory by memory, their emotions towards one another keep changing drastically from love to hate to admiration. Winslet especially has the toughest job because she’s both Clementine Kruczyinski and sometimes Joel Barrish’s thoughts in the form of Clementine; how she knows who is who, when is when, and pulls it off seamlessly is a curious thought and I don’t know how she did that.
This is probably one of my favourite romances of all time because it’s so unconventional and yet touches us with the naturalism of romances of old. People categorize this film as a comedy and I find it hard to see it that way. It’s two people who are caught in a comedic situation for sure but they aren’t embracing it at all. Rather, they’d prefer to find themselves a way out before it’s too late. It’s not funny. It’s tragic. And it happens to be exhilarating tragedy to watch.
Director: Michel Gondry
Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson
Canadian Rating: 14A
4 stars out of 4 (Excellent)
By Albert Tam
What would you do if someone you really loved broke your heart? Cry probably and try and move on and remember the good times, forget the bad.
That’s the main idea of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and it tells the story of Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), an anti-socialite who falls madly in love with a woman named Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) and then is devastated when she leaves him. To make matters worse, he finds out that she’s had a procedure by a doctor (Tom Wilkinson) and some young punk hooligans (Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood) to have him permanently erased from her memory and his fury drives him to rid of her exactly the same way. The twist? That as he lies sedated in bed while they erase his memories, he realizes that there are some memories of her that he’d rather keep and cherish for himself, but it’s a little hard to let them know when you’re trapped inside your own mind.
Music video director Michel Gondry helms this feature and if you think this is a special effects driven movie, it is not. It’s a camera trick driven movie that is simply stunning to watch (you all should youtube this man). One scene has Barish running up and down the avenue trying to catch up to Kruczynski but for whatever reason, he keeps winding back in the same spot on the street and she keeps walking away in both directions no matter how much he wants to catch up to her – the image is permanent in his memory, and thus unalterable. To achieve this shot, Gondry films Carrey running down the avenue after Winslet, calls cut, films him doing the same thing again but with Winslet even further away, and then reverses the image like a mirror to make it seem as if no matter which way he runs, she keeps walking away. It’s assembled brilliantly into one take, but see if you can catch where the cuts are merged together. That’s just one trick I understood after my fifth viewing. Everything else is still a mystery.
The movie was written by Charlie Kaufman and his distinct odd flair is very prevalent in this picture, but unlike his other movies, I found this one to have the greatest heart and be the most touching thanks to Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey. I still feel that Carrey deserved an Oscar nomination for his performance (I think it’s the best of his career so far), but alas, I was wrong and the only acting nod went to Winslet who is brilliant nonetheless. This is a difficult movie to act in, because memory by memory, their emotions towards one another keep changing drastically from love to hate to admiration. Winslet especially has the toughest job because she’s both Clementine Kruczyinski and sometimes Joel Barrish’s thoughts in the form of Clementine; how she knows who is who, when is when, and pulls it off seamlessly is a curious thought and I don’t know how she did that.
This is probably one of my favourite romances of all time because it’s so unconventional and yet touches us with the naturalism of romances of old. People categorize this film as a comedy and I find it hard to see it that way. It’s two people who are caught in a comedic situation for sure but they aren’t embracing it at all. Rather, they’d prefer to find themselves a way out before it’s too late. It’s not funny. It’s tragic. And it happens to be exhilarating tragedy to watch.
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