***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, and Tom Wilkinson
Directed by Michael Gondry & written by Charlie Kaufman, Pierre Bismuth, and Michel Gondry
2004
108 min R
Dozen-or-So Best Films of 2004
The centerpiece of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is a sometimes whimsical, sometimes unsettling cinematic rhapsody of a man fleeing through his own memories as they are being erased, one by one. From childhood scenes he runs directly into his adult apartment. A door in a bookstore leads to a friend’s house. A beach house slowly melts into the beach next to it so that he finds himself up to his ankles in saltwater, and eventually up to his neck in sand. As the memories decay he sees cars fall from the sky, buildings rust before his eyes, people lose their faces, and everything we see flashes red like an old home movie.
The man has hired a team of scientists to erase his memories of his ex-girlfriend. They have put him to sleep for the procedure, but halfway through he decides he doesn’t want to lose her. Like something out of “Solaris,” he takes his image of her by the hand and they charge deeper into his mind. They’re on the run, first through their shared memories, and then eventually through all the secrets and stories he never told her.
The premise reminds us of “The Twilight Zone,” or perhaps “Total Recall” if that film had been about romance instead of, um, whatever the hell it was about. Like “The Zone,” “Eternal Sunshine” has a bizarre futuristic gimmick and barely enough psuedo-science thrown in to make it seem kind-of sort-of believable. Also like “The Zone,” “Eternal Sunshine” is about how we would behave and what the implications of such a device would be, and not about how plausible it might be, or the science behind it, or how long until we can invent one.
The couple in question is played by Jim Carrey (“Bruce Almighty”) and Kate Winslet (“Heavenly Creatures”). At first we think they’re going to simply be our eyes and ears in this crazy new world, the way we often see sci-fi worlds through the eyes of a brown-haired white guy, standing in for the audience, with no particular thoughts or opinions. But Jim and Kate are actually what the movie is about. Shuffling and drab, brown-clad and badly hair-cutted, Jim is solitary and self-contained, while Kate is loud, eccentric, forcible, and fond of hair dyes with names like Blue Ruin and Agent Orange. By the end of the movie, we have discovered that he is more interesting than we first suspected and she is more banal. Our opinion of her shifts throughout the course of the movie: first we are curious, then we are irritated by her contrived, forced eccentricity, and finally we come to feel sorry for her and her desperate attempts to be loved. These are two lonely people who do need each other.
This is probably my favorite Jim Carrey performance and my favorite Jim Carrey film, simply because he never breaks down and starts behaving ridiculously. The movie is about the character he is playing, not the recurring rubber-faced persona he used in “Ace Ventura,” “Liar Liar,” and “Bruce Almighty.” With the persona out of the way he is shut-in, awkward, always a little embarrassed. In a way, Kate is playing the typical Jim Carrey role of someone so desperate for love and attention that she flails her arms and screams, while Jim watches and shakes his head over how pitiable such behavior can be.
Parallel to Jim and Kate is the team wiping Jim’s brain. Calling them scientists earlier was probably generous on my part. They’re more like the nerds that talk about you to their friends after they fix your computer at work. Played by the king and queen of geeks, Frodo from “Lord of the Rings” (Elijah Wood) and Mary Jane from “Spider-Man” (Kirsten Dunst), they are joined by Mark Ruffalo (“Collateral”) with big hair and big glasses, and one legitimate scientist (the always reliable Tom Wilkinson) as the company’s founder. Their episodes seem so tangental and silly, and they are introduced so off-handedly, that we’re surprised by how important they become later.
“Eternal Sunshine” has the unmistakable mark of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who penned “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich.” It is his most accessible screenplay because we can relate more easily to heartbreak and the torment of memory than to the wackiness of his previous efforts. With shifting storylines and a premise involving faked memories, Kaufman had so many opportunities to turn “Eternal Sunshine” into a guessing game, full of tricks and surprises. He avoids that temptation by never losing sight of his characters and their univeral sense of despair. Kaufman sets up his twists and turns to be spotted a few scenes in advance. The result differs from films like “The Usual Suspects” and “Fight Club,” which want us to congratulate them on their trickery. Instead, because we see things coming, the events of the dying romance often gain poignancy and sadness. We gradually come to realize Carrey’s memories of Winslet are disappearing, even his memories of her having him erased from her memory. A lesser movie would have saved this twist for the end, been satisfied with all of us gasping, and then not gone any further.
I really like movies like this. Rare is the sci-fi character study and rare is the SF that’s not about explosions or creating an airtight fictional world. What happens in “Eternal Sunshine” can be seen as a parable for intimacy in an age that encourages us not to share our toys. To what lengths does each of the two lovers have to go to finally know what the other is thinking? I also appreciate movies about memory because I believe that we live in our memories, hopes, and the present all at once. Our recollections and embarrassments are constantly informing everything we see and do. Past episodes are indeed always playing out in our heads, despite how crucial the present may be. All these things mix together to make us who we are, and that’s just one of the many topics of “Eternal Sunshine’s” whimsical meditation.
Finished November 19th, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
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