ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: foul language, sexual implications

Rated:

Have you ever wanted to forget someone? To erase all of the memories of them from your mind, and pretend that they never existed? This is the premise of a truly unique and strangely likable film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) is one for being spontaneous. For no reason at all he decides to call in sick to work and take a train to the seashore, where he meets Clementine (Kate Winslet) wandering around in a parka. The two hit it off on the train and decide to spend the following afternoon together. Little does Joel know that he's met Clementine before. In fact, six months earlier he had her erased from his mind after a painful relationship ground to a halt. He accused her of sleeping around, she stormed out, and after that both tried to find a new life apart.

Clementine went to the mind trickery of Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkenson) to have her memory modified and all thoughts of Joel erased. Once Joel heard about the procedure, he did the same thing... but midway through the mental wipe, begins to miss Clementine. He desperately drags her through his memories, trying to find a place to hide, little knowing that one of his doctors (Elijah Wood) has his eye on Clementine. Nor are the doctors aware that eventually the procedure begins to wear off, bringing back sporadic, inexplicable urges and fragments of memories. Everything starts to unravel, taking us through a mind-bending sequence of plot twists, memories from the past, and Joel's desperate attempts to wake up from the procedure while it's in progress. The result is a very odd film on many levels. It has delightful characters (Kate Winslet is particularly eccentric and wonderful) and some unexpected twists. The ending conclusion is that despite the hardship of relationships, you really do need to remember both the good and bad memories; they're a part of your life and should not be repressed or forgotten.

As a student of physiology I enjoyed the structure of the patients, learning about their past hurts and happiness, dealing with grief, anger, and guilt, being frustrated that they cannot find one another in a sea of rapidly decreasing memories. It's interesting from that perspective alone but is not what you would call classic filmmaking. The flashbacks can be confusing, the characters are all immoral, and you often feel as though you're running in circles. It simply did not appeal to me on a higher level other than as a mental toy. There are some good performances (including the understated Kirsten Dunst) and the screenplay is interesting, but it also has a great deal of offensive content. There's no actual sex scenes present but numerous implications, cases of innuendo, discussion on the theft of a woman's panties, and sex-related conversations. It's implied that a young woman has had an affair with a much older married man. The man doing a procedure on Joel neglects his patient to dance around in his underwear with his girlfriend. The two wind up in a dazed intimate embrace on the nearest chair; brief backside nudity is shown as he jumps into a pair of pants. You can see his girlfriend's nipples through her slightly sheer top.

Joel's best friend smokes pot. There may be something aside from nicotine in a cigarette that two people are sharing, since they appear stoned in the following scenes. The f-word gets a regular workout with about two dozen uses, along with six abuses of Jesus' name, and several of GD, along with general profanities. There is some mildly violent content but nothing particularly memorable. It's an interesting study in psychology but nothing remarkable and audiences may wish at the conclusion that their time had been better spent in a less murky tide.