Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Incredible, exhilarating film about, well, love and pain and the whole damn thing. (Didn't somebody once say something about loving and losing and its respective position above not loving, yadda yadda?) A rare film in that it's made with both a brain and a heart: the narrative gimmickry keeps the ground beneath our feet shifting as we're constantly called upon to reexamine our place in the timeline, but the back-to-front nature of the memory-erasure technique also packs an unexpected emotional wallop, as we only gradually come to see all that will be lost in Carrey's life. The parallel plot strand with Kirsten Dunst was a brilliant gambit -- I'll admit, this was the first film in years to make me cry, and it was the scene where Ms. Dunst finds out... well, we'll just call it 'the truth'... anyway, it was that moment that set me off, which only made the subsequent scenes with Carrey and Winslet that much more affecting. (By the way, how come nobody seems to be mentioning Harold Pinter's Betrayal in reviewing this? I find that odd... doubly so since everyone dragged out the comparison when reviewing Memento, which has structural but not thematic similarities.) Also, the direction is inventive and colorful while staying fairly naturalistic and the acting is superb on all counts. I can see how this might be overly intellectualized and/or remote for some people's tastes (my mother, for one, was underwhelmed), but I think it's grand. And after all, you're here to read what I thought about it... :-)

Grade: A

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