Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is essentially Jim Carrey’s movie.Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind cast: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director: Michel Gondry
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind movie rating: 4.5 stars
When someone mentions Jim Carrey, what do you think? Oh, that actor that featured in a string of comedies, some of them good, most of them not so much. And for those of you who only think of Carrey as ‘The Mask guy’, I have got some news for you. And mind you, this is old news, at least more than a decade old. The man has dramatic chops. Watch Michel Gondry directorial Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind if you don’t believe me.
Written by Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind features Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey as a somewhat eccentric couple and follows their journey through time and memory.
It has been regarded by some as a science-fiction pet project of Kaufman, but Eternal Sunshine really is about human relationships and emotions, more than anything else.
“Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a f*d-up girl who’s lookin’ for my own peace of mind; don’t assign me yours,” says Winslet’s Clementine Kruczynski at one point. Winslet’s character has been cited as an example of the quintessential Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a female character that stays solely in a movie to enable the lead male character to embrace his imperfections and realise his ‘truth.’ However, one look at the aforementioned dialogue of Winslet and it becomes clear that Clementine fights back the assumption of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl on multiple occasions in the movie.
Both the lead characters are well-fleshed out, but this goes without saying that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is essentially Carrey’s movie. As the quiet, reserved and emotionally complex Joel Barish, Carrey carries the movie along for the most part on his able shoulders.
Clementine and Joel meet on a train and a heady romance ensues, but here’s the catch. The two have met before, only they don’t remember it because they have erased each other from the other’s memories.
The sequences that go back in time, the cinematography therein, is stunning. There is one scene in particular which stands out, the one where Joel and Clementine meet in his memory and they plan to hide from the memory erasers; it is set like one of those scenes you usually encounter in a fantastical novel where different worlds meet and collide in the most wondrous of ways.
Hollywood Rewind: You’ve Got Mail | Half Nelson | Fight Club | Doubt | American Psycho | Julie and Julia | Forrest Gump | The Silence of the Lambs | Finding Neverland | Roman Holiday| American History X | Tropic Thunder | Before Sunrise | Scent of a Woman | Finding Forrester | Sixteen Candles
The writing is impeccable, the visuals lovely and the chemistry between Winslet and Carrey is electric. I would say those are more than enough reasons to stream the movie ASAP.
