ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. Michel Gondry, dir., co-writer of story. USA: Blue Ruin, Anonymous Content, Focus Features, This Is That Productions (prod.) / Focus Features (US dist.), 2004. Charlie Kaufman, story and script, with Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth, story. Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Thomas Jay Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Wilkinson, featured players. (IMDb source for filmographic information.)

A surrealistic psychological romantic comedy, with a single science-fictional novum necessary for the premise: a technique to erase a set of very specific memories—specifically for the plot, memories of one's "ex." Relevant here for the image of Carrey's character (Joel Barish) with his head in two devices, one for the initial mapping of his memories of Clementine Kruczynski (Winslet) and, for much of the movie, a second, smaller version when he's sleeping at home, having the procedure performed. Moving out from Carry's head during the procedure, we have wires, a monitor, and a couple or three laptop computers; beyond this we see the interactions of Dr. Howard Mierzwiak's Lacuna company technicians, receptionist, and, eventually, boss partying and working through (badly) their own relationships. Inside Carrey's head, Joel and Clementine try to find memory spaces where the technicians and (later) Dr. Mierzwiak can't find them and remove Clementine. The images imply the imposition of cybernetic mechanism resisted by love. Utter sappiness and thematic cliché are avoided by having the love of Joel and Clementine pretty screwed up, and the relationships among the partying Lacuna people really problematic: love is privileged in this film, but (1) only hard-core romantics will be certain of a "happily-ever-after" ending for Clementine and Joel, and (2) the Lacuna folks' carnivalesque is shown to be irresponsible and slightly pathological.

(RDE, 02/03/04) RDE, Title, 21Aug19