Film Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Director: Michel Gondry

Here Gondry mixed a romantic drama with a touch of science fiction in this 2004 film that uses a nonlinear narrative to explore the nature of memory and romantic love. The film was a financial and critical success with the writers winning an Academy Award for the Best Original Screenplay whilst Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Actress.

The film is presented in a non-linear format but in order we basically learn that Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) was dating Clementine (Kate Winslet) but after the breakup she hired a company called Lacuna Inc to erase her memory of the relationship. Joel finds out through friends who were told by the company not to mention Joel to her and decides to have the treatment himself so we follows Joel's subconscious as the memories are deleted from his brain.

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) having his memories erased

I was truly astonished by this film. It had everything from being touching and sweet to sobering and sad as well as a few funny moments thrown in, the overall film itself was very clever. The plot itself is at times slightly confusing as we jump through different timelines and from reality to sub-conscious but it has a true emotional center that feels incredibly real. The relationship between Joel and Clementine feels genuinely authentic as they go through the honeymoon period towards status quo that so many us have gone through in relationships.

*spoilers ahead*

Without doubt, this was Jim Carrey's most impressive acting performance in a film. The scene where in his dreams he realises his memories of Clementine are being erased and calls for the Lacuna employees to stop was heart-breaking. The following attempts to try and steal the memories of Clementine by burying them in places where she didn't really exist really showed the true value of our memories. We've all had horrible things happen to us in our lives and in the immediate aftermath we would love to be able to delete our memories of that incident. But realistically it's what makes human and in most cases makes us a stronger person for having got through that which is the essence of the movie. Winslet plays a free spirit whose hair colour changes nearly as much as the scenery and was a refreshing change to a lot of the roles she's become known for playing.

Joel with girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet)

The shots of the snowy beach in Montauk were excellent along with the surrounding scenery of the beach house and the woods. This is the memory that they sub-consciously share that gives them the possibility of reconciliation in the future, it will always be there place and the scene driving back from where they originally first met was incredibly sweet as Joel's friend asks him who he was talking to. Gondry completes the full circle loop to the beginning in emphatic style after treating us to a film within which we wished for nothing more.

4/4 The film had everything