Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Minds, hearts, love erased
A frozen Valentine’s Day
Would you erase me?
What if???
Some of the best films begin with that question.
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind it is: What if we could erase the memory of a “bad” relationship?
It is a deceptively simple question that unlocks ones that most of us don’t often consider: Are our memories our own or are they shared with the people we make them with? Who would we really be if we could selectively airbrush out parts of our identity?
That’s a lot of heady - in more ways than one - stuff for a movie that, if you don’t look past the box, looks like a straightforward chick flick (albeit one with an unlikely romantic lead - Jim Carrey - The Bad Batch).
Going much past that spoils some reasonably good twists and turns that are, if not M. Night Shyamalan worthy, interesting and entertaining enough to preserve.
What we can say is that the film kept our attention (no small task), and that the cast gave uniformly solid performances, from Carrey to his quirky and unforgettable love interest Clementine (Kate Winslet - Finding Neverland), to entertainingly creepy work by Elijah Wood (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) and a non-Hulky Mark Ruffalo. Oh yeah, some lady named Kirsten Dunst also appears, throwing a last minute monkey wrench into an already emotionally whipsawing storyline.
What’s the verdict?
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind won’t be for everyone. It requires you to think more than most films and the theme of tortured romance and challenged relationship make watching it alone feel vaguely voyeuristic. But…it is a fantastic date film if you and your significant other are of slightly geeky intellectual-romantic bent and like talking about feelings and mushy stuff like that.
You can catch Eternal Sunshine HERE.
Four out of Five Memory-filled Cassette Tapes.
📼📼📼📼
(Movie Cat Note: This is a rare compromise rating. As a “dude watching this alone in his basement” flick it ranks a low three; as a “I’m watching this with my boyfriend/girlfriend who I want to impress/challenge with my emotional sensitivity” film it is just shy of a solid five cassettes.)
What did you think??? Do you remember?
If you do, drop us a note in the Comments and let us know!
Though Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was brilliant? You may enjoy one of these.
