Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the other day. Not really having heard anything about it, it was pretty much a case of “bah, the movie we really wanted to see isn’t on for another hour, but that one with Jim Carrey is. Let’s see that”. I am glad we did.

ESofSM is a great movie. The story is written by director Michel Gondry (who has made music vidoes for artists like Bjork, Chemical Brothers and Massive Attack) and Charlie Kaufman (who wrote Being John Malkovich), and as you’d expect from Kaufman it revels in blurred reality, plot twists and timeline jumps.

In essence the movie is a love story between Clementine and Joel, who doesn’t really realize how much they appreciate their relationship until both of them decide to erase each other from their memories. Peel the love story layer away and you’re left with a movie that takes on issues of ethics, science, fate, destiny, moral responsibility and free will.

The crude lightning, on-location shots, and very real and in your face atmosphere combined with an intelligent and catching story and all around solid acting is bound to make this a sure hit with movie critics.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind takes you on a delightful trip away from the grand scale, epic battles and conflicts of todays movies and into the single person conflict in Joels mind. Good stuff.