#54 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2005)

Got to say, this film was a big, pleasant surprise. I had completely dismissed it for one fact: Jim Carrey. God. I can't stand Jim Carrey. The way he overacts everything, making retard faces and expressions hoping people will find him funny. It's okay if the film in question is a kid-friendly comedy (I did like The Mask as a kid), but everything else... I had seen The Number 23 to see if he could pull of a more serious role and trust me, that didn't help at all. But turns out he managed to keep his shitty personal style under control here (for most of it). And I loved this film as a result.

Well, kind of. I didn't like it for Carrey's performance in particular, but everything else is excellent. The premise, in particular: Jim Carrey plays Joel, a shy, withdrawn person that runs into the charming and upbeat Clementine (Kate Winslet) in a train, and hit it off. But what they don't know is that they had actually been dating but grew sick of each other and recently erased the respective memories of each other through Lacuna Inc, a, er, memory erasing firm? The film then goes back to Joel as he tries to erase all his memories of Clementine, but ends up wanting to keep them and tries to save the, er, mental projection of her from erasure. I know it sounds crazy and disjointed, but trust me when I say it plays out wonderfully.

    

No plot holes other than a pseudo-futuristic company using fucking casettes.

But everything happening in between was perfectly executed. While Joel is trying to keep Clementine's memories, the real life Clementine is dating Patrick (Frodo, I mean, Elijah Wood), an employee of Lacuna that falls in love with her as he erases her memories and tries to seduce her acting like Joel. But Clementine seems to reject him, possibly due to the fact that she faintly remembers Joel. Or because of Patrick's hairy hobbit feet or short height, I don't know.

    

Oh, oh, and then he has to decide between Clementine or Sam! Who will he choose? (I'll stop now.)

And then there's a subplot involving another Lacuna employee (Kirsten Dunst) having a crush on her boss. Not as interesting but still pretty good. Aside from the perfect premise, I think pretty much every performance is spot on. Carrey, like I said, may not be the best choice but aside from some goofy moments he doesn't go apeshit and start doing "funny faces", and that's more than enough for me. Kate Winslet's character is excellent and appealing, the idea behind Elijah Wood's character is just genius, and the rest of the supporting cast, like Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo and Tom Wilkinson, are pretty entertaining as well.

The film isn't perfect: like I just said, there are a couple of scenes that feel really off. This one in particular: Joel tries to hide Clementine in his childhood memories so she won't be erased. The result: Jim Carrey acting, talking and dressing like a four year old. This is exactly what I was concerned about and it totally breaks the tone of the film, but luckily the rest of it wasn't like this at all and it moves on pretty quickly.

    

My exact words: "GOD NO."

You're not off the hook just yet, Jim. I may watch the Truman Show later on to see if I can get rid of my negative bias, but for now, Eternal Sunshine will do. It is an excellent film with some flaws here and there, but with such a great premise and characters you don't care. Highly recommended, even if you're not into romantic films.