Picture this, somebody sending you a message saying that a friend, lover or fiancée, has completely erased you from their memory, and advises you to act accordingly, seriously how would anyone feel facing that, yes indeed sometimes one wants and needs to forget, after forgetting, the second logical step would be "what if i could do it all over again ?"
This is the central theme of Eternal Sunshine, Joel (Jim Carrey) meets Clementine (Kate Winslet) and they have an affair, at first they are excited,
then happy, then bored, then angry, then sad, then vindictive, happens all the time, the final straw being, memory erasing, Joel is accidently informed of this on Valentine day ! and being the man child he is, decides to do the same, so here He is at the headquarters of Lacuna Inc, asking Dr. Mierzwiak to erase Clementine from his mind, a procedure that turns out to be harder then what they thought wich is a good parallel for them to reveal their own issues with memories and love in general.
The fearless team of Lacuna is dispatched at Joel's place, to perform the erasing, the team leader Stan (Mark Ruffalo) is in charge of the operation, along with the frivoulous Patrick (Elijah Wood), and as things get complicated, they are joined by Mary (Kirsten Dunst) Dr Mierzwiak's Assistant, and throughout the night, they visit Joel's Memory, trying to erase it memory management
being as hard a task on computer as it is inside consciousness.Charlie Kaufman is a brilliang screenwriter, his screenplay is the true stat or this movie, nobody does alien scripts with deep social commentarism as he does, Michel Gondry the director is the other force of this movie, brining on his trademark visual inventivity, and as with a good script and a good director, no actor can fail, so the actors have adequate room to play at ease, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, have a good chemistry, and it carries the movie, the initial conflict is do they want to forget ? from this central premisse, the movie has a strong structure, where great visual tricks are performed, and in the ambient surrealism of this movie, everything makes sense, with respect to the audience's suspension of desbelief, it is never silly, and never overdone under a brilliant score by Jon Brion.
Gondry and Kaufman are amongst the "Smarter then you crowd" people like Sofia Coppola, Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham, the bands Phoenix, and My Bloody Valentine and even the White Stripes, these people work together all the time, their work might be too arty for some, but it's output is American art with a European touch, this movie has the feeling of a good French movie, it comes as no surprise since Gondry is French, but it's brilliant, because it respect's the audience's imagination even in it's surrealism, rather then catering to fairy tales fantasies, Kate Winslet in here looks as Kabyle as ever, acts as Kabyle as ever, I never liked her, but i like her part in this movie, she should do that more, and less like "The Holiday"
Maybe it is not the best movie to watch if you have breakup issues, because you will project it on yourself, but any visual proof that inventivity and humour and surrealism can survive in something aimed at a large public is good news for us, and we keep on asking for more stuff from Kaufman to whome we wish a long miserable life, because his misery has such a beautiful output.
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