There's a scene in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND in which Jim Carrey as Joel Barish enters the waiting room of Lacuna, Inc. -- a company that could only sprout from the mind of gonzo screenwriter Charlie Kaufman -- and there sits a woman holding a water bowl with the name "Buster" on it, a rawhide bone, and a photograph of a Boston Terrier. Lacuna is a company that specializes in erasure of those memories we believe are too painful to endure. Joel is simply following in the footsteps of ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet), who has already had this procedure done, and no longer recognizes him.

When we open our hearts to another soul, and it ends badly, would we be better off if we could wipe their existence completely out of our minds? Would that roll back the tape of our lives so that we revert to exactly how we were before knowing that person? Or does each deep connection we make in our lives create such an impact that wiping out the memories of them removes a sizable chunk of just who we are? And if you knew in advance that a relationship was going to ultimately cause you so much pain that you'd sometimes find it nearly impossible to endure, would the good times be worth the pain?

The scene described in the first paragraph lasts for perhaps fifteen seconds, and yet it is the woman grieving the loss of her beloved Buster that sticks in my mind, for it is in the relationships we have with our pets that we cannot delude ourselves about their permanence. These relationships are fated -- doomed if you will -- to last only at best ten to twenty years, and so they more than any other test our ability to cope with the trajectory of euphoria, contentment, loss that characterize so many of the relationships we have in our lives.

This is pretty heady stuff for any filmmaker this side of Ingmar Bergman to handle, but Charlie Kaufman, who previously brought us a portal into John Malkovich's brain (Being John Malkovich) and a screenwriter who writes himself into his own script (Adaptation), manages to tackle it with charm, just a bit of whimsy, the exact right amount of pathos, and a touch of Philip K. Dick sci-fi "what-if". Add director Michel Gondry (best known for Bjork music videos) providing some of the most dazzling cinematic artwork you're likely to see this year and the result is a mostly winning exploration of the meaning and impact of love in the human spirit.

Attempting to provide a plot synopsis for this film is as pointless as providing one for Memento, for as we already know, when we're in Charlie Kaufman's universe, the rules of linearity that usually govern consensus reality no longer apply. If Being John Malkovich was about being quirky and oddball for the sheer joy of coming up with something preposterous, and Adaptation was the beginning of Kaufman's exploration of the self, his journey comes to a fascinating fruition with ETERNAL SUNSHINE.

Jim Carrey, the most successful comic actor of the last ten years, is cast against type as the angst-ridden Joel. Carrey has been trying to be Taken Seriously as an actor for years, with mixed results. We all know now about Carrey's difficult and impoverished youth. His use of first standup comedy and then broad comic acting as a form of self-therapy is not unusual, as we all know that comedy and tragedy are inextricably linked. Yet Carrey, even more than most actors, often bares TOO much of his soul when he's not talking out of his asscrack. Watching an actor we expect to make us laugh delve into his own demons as Carrey tends to do, particularly when it's done in near-misses such as The Truman Show or in complete botch-jobs like The Majestic, can be uncomfortable to watch, as if we're eavesdropping on his therapy sessions. In Joel Barish, Carrey has finally found the role that should finally convince even the most die-hard skeptics that in the hands of the right director, this is one heck of a talent. Joel is riddled with self-doubt and anguish -- traits that Carrey handles with surprising restraint here, but the situations into which Kaufman's screenplay places him -- being bathed in the kitchen sink by his mother as he and the Clementine of his memory attempt to outrun the procedure that will erase her from his mind forever; waking up next to Clementine in a warm cozy bed on a snowy beach, sitting in an apartment in which rain is inexplicably falling -- allow him to lighten up just enough to keep the performance from becoming too dark.

Clementine is a role that Kate Winslet could have phoned in had she chosen to. She's the kind of neurotic, free-spirited yet angst-ridden sprite that Winslet has portrayed since making her debut in Heavenly Creatures at the age of seventeen. There's more than a little bit of Sue Bridehead to Clementine, well aware of her allure and yet unable to cope with the men she lures into her web. Winslet has been in desperate need of a good role after the forgettable Hideous Kinky, the excreble Holy Smoke, the seen-by-no-one Enigma, and the depressing Iris. She's a formidable whirlwind on screen, and if her roles don't seem to differ much from each other (though the hair colors do, particularly the six or more colors she sports in this film), the charisma she exudes and the chemistry she manages to convey with each of her leading men make each of these characters seem unique.

If Carrey is cast against type, and Winslet finally gets to play contemporary, certainly Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood would seem to be unlikely choices as the goofy technogeeks who run the "machines that go 'ping!'" which perform the memory erasure. Ruffalo, with the world's worst haircut and Elvis Costello's glasses, seems to be having a ball, and Wood, who was a fine little actor years before he became Frodo Baggins and needed a new release badly that would showcase him NOT being a hobbit, is fascinating as the duplicitous Patrick, who steals Joel's memories and makes a play for Clementine himself. Kirsten Dunst and Tom Wilkinson round out the fine supporting cast.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND is brilliant for its first half, but seems to drag a bit in the second, for all the whimsy, largely because neither Joel nor Clementine are all that appealing as characters. Their journey through the looking glass that emerges from Charlie Kaufman's mind and is brought to life by Michel Gondry's terrific-looking rendering, is less effective than it could have been if we really cared about them as a couple. Yet our very bafflement at what brings these two very different people together mirrors what most of us experience in day-to-day life, as we ponder just what brings two people together and keeps them there. In asking these questions, ETERNAL SUNSHINE is quite a profound movie masquerading as a whimsical trifle.

-- Jill Cozzi

Read other Mixed Reviewers' reviews of ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND:
Martin's review
Gabriel's review
Ned's Review

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