Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

The Movie Poster

Before I start, I must state three things at the outset…

1. I absolutely cannot stand Jim Carrey – I find that he is generally characterised by over acting and hamming.
2. I strongly dislike the romantic, “chick-flick” genre of movies.
3. I dislike reviewing films and books in my blog posts – since this is something one can typically google and read up.

Now that I have made my position crystal clear, allow me, dear reader to resume my blogging…

It has been about four days since Sid finally left for India, and I was experiencing a bit of a void that the departure of a very close friend leaves in your immediate life. Having cleaned and fussed over the house to the nth degree, I finally settled down to my laptop to watch a movie.

Surfing through various movie databases and forums online, I finally settled on the “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, with some trepidation… owing to factors one and two stated in the introduction to this post. But the critic ratings were unanimous, and I decided to give it a go.

The film is just brilliant. It is a comedy, but not quite… a romance, but not mushy and has a real earthy, simplistic and yet real-to-life feel about it. It tells the story of an ordinary, painfully shy man (played to perfection by a VERY subdued and subtle Carrey) and his encounter with an almost maverick, free-spirited girl on a train (played charmingly by Kate Winslet). The story traces their initial awkward encounter, the flicker of something between them, and then inevitably their journey into love and each other.

The plot starts to thicken, when one day Joel (Carrey) sees Clementine (Winslet) with another, younger man. Not only does she look through a heart-wrenchingly agonized Joel, but she also fails to recognize him. Puzzled and yet determined, Joel investigates the matter, only to discover that Clementine has had all memory of him erased.

Shocked, abandoned, shattered and broken, Joel is left with no option for survival, but to do the same. The film traces the procedure of erasure of all of Clementine’s memories from his brain in a grainy, broken and abrupt series of images – starting with the most recent, painful memories of their fights and disagreements, moving on to the earlier, happier times.

As Joel’s brain starts to lose Clementine’s memories and the feelings associated with them, he gradually becomes aware of the situation. He also realizes that he does not want to forget her and must try to fight the procedure. The storyline dips into his childhood and formative years, as he tries to hide the memories of Clementine there. Unfortunately, in a nerve racking climax, the procedure manages to find and erase all his memories of her.

The film concludes in cinematic brilliance – with Joel and Clementine (now played by different, ordinary people) encountering each other once more. Innocent of their past, they feel the same inexplicable pull to each other. And then, while driving in a car together, Clementine finds a letter to herself, along with tape recordings of all their memories – happy and unhappy times together. Voicing their disappointment with the way the old Joel and Clementine treated the other, they accept each other for all they are.

The movie left me thinking – not about the romantic, new love… but about the ability to love your partner for all his or her flaws – as also the indestructibility of such a love, and the inability for someone to flick it on or off, as if it were a light switch.

I know, I know… I have gotten sentimental here! But you should watch the movie – You’ll get what I’m trying to express here!