Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

If all of us can have part of our memory erased, would we want to forget all the bad ones? Most would say yes but maybe not after watching this movie. That is what this movie tries to drive at and it hits home real hard for those who had been through failed relationships before.

Clementine (Winslet) broke up with Joel (Carrey) and it was a pretty bad breakup . Shortly after, Clementine underwent a procedure to have all of her memories of Joel removed, and that means everything and everyone related to Joel, as that is the only way to totally forget about someone. (Now, forget about technicality for the sake of this movie. Erasing memory through surgery surely makes no sense and science fiction is not what this movie is about.) Joel was not supposed to find out about it but did so in the end. He was infuriated and decides to have it done as well, mainly to get even. However, as the procedure starts erasing the newer memories first and then goes backwards, it brings Joel back to the time when their relationship was still sweet. That was when he realised that it is worthwhile to keep them, even if he cannot choose which ones. Therefore while in the middle of the 'operation', he had second thoughts, hence the race to beat the 'eraser' in his subconscious mind.

From the storyline point of view, the idea of how sometimes things happened because they were meant to be really will leave you thinking long after the movie ended. Sometimes, no matter what you do, you cannot escape from your destiny. From a technical point of view, the thing that makes this movie so wonderfully enjoyable is the way it was arranged. It may be confusing to some (so if you are going to the movies for no brain activity, this is not for you) but it is not really that difficult to follow because continuity did not suffer at all despite it going back and forth.

Although the movie is mainly about the two of them, the other characters played by Dunts, Woods and Ruffalo, are just as important even though they seems to have a minor role. As the movie progresses, everyone falls in place nicely. You get that when a movie is paced appropriately.

This is no comedy, although they are some comedic moments that will crack you up real good. The promo for this picture was a gimmick, which I really do not understand why the need to do that in the first place. Just because Carrey was in it?

Acting is top notch. Pick a character to relate to and you can easily feel for them, their happiness, sadness and disappointments. You will find the dialogs worth paying attention to.

The movie can be slow at times and with the picture quality intended as it is, it may be tiring but it was worth it.