I’M A GREAT admirer of Charlie Kaufman, screen writer of some of the most absurd films Hollywood has ever made. He is the David Blaine of cinema. He hides in a glass box, and you’re never quite sure whether he’s starving himself to prove a point or simply exposing himself to impress young girls. His latest film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is a stunt in point.
High on ambition, and vigorously low-budget, this sci-fi romance, directed by Michel Gondry, plays the usual preposterous and inspired tricks with memory, amnesia and middle-aged men in creative and emotional crisis. It is not as fiendishly cunning as Being John Malkovich or as savage as Adaptation, but the surreal romantic twists are pure Kaufman at his neurotic worst. Transparent too. If the local Romeo is the metric rule, our hero, Jim Carrey, is the dismal inch.
But his lover, Kate Winslet, is quite wonderful. “I’m an addictive little bitch if truth be told,” says the punky Winslet to the quiet stranger (Carrey) she picks up on Montauk beach, Long Island. How addictive becomes alarmingly clear when she decides to have her memories of their subsequent relationship electronically erased from her brain in a fit of pique. Naturally, this comes as something of a shock to Carrey’s grungy lover, who opts for the same procedure to stave off chronic rejection.
The operation is manned by a couple of slackers (Mark Ruffalo and Kirsten Dunst) who run the Valentine’s Day “erasing” service with the professional charm of a back-street abortion clinic. The hapless patient (Carrey), in a surprisingly unmannered and watchable turn, suddenly decides halfway through his operation that he doesn’t want to lose all memory of Winslet’s Clementine. Not surprising, because she is far more sexy and shallow than he will ever be. The problem is that Carrey is in a coma, and his memories are being wiped clean in reverse order. Gondry’s special effects are eerily effective.
A panicked Carrey tries to find hiding places for his bemused lover in the dark and embarrassing corners of his subconscious. Yes, it’s desperately contrived, but there are terrific bits of art-house installation in Carrey’s head. What’s missing, curiously, is intimacy. Winslet and Carrey have none, and it poisons the point of the entire film.
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