2004
DIRECTOR: MICHEL GONDRY PRODUCERS: STEVE GOLIN AND ANTHONY BREGMAN SCREENPLAY: CHARLIE KAUFMAN, BASED ON A STORY BY CHARLIE KAUFMAN, MICHEL GONDRY, AND PIERRE BISMUTH STARRING: JIM CARREY (JOEL BARISH), KATE WINSLET (CLEMENTINE KRUCZYNSKI), KIRSTEN DUNST (MARY), ELIJAH WOOD (PATRICK), MARK RUFFALO (STAN), TOM WILKINSON (DR. MIERZWIAK), JANE ADAMS (CARRIE), DAVID CROSS (ROB)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
FOCUS FEATURES/UNIVERSAL • COLOR, 108 MINUTES
When his girlfriend undergoes a procedure to erase all memory of their relationship, a man decides to purge his memories of her as well.
A one-of-a-kind romance with a sci-fi twist, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has a circular narrative like a time-travel loop. But instead of traveling through time, the comedy-drama takes a loopy ride through a couple’s relationship by tracing the patterns of emotional memory inside the human brain. With true-to-life performances and handheld camera work, the film manages to achieve a marked realism, though everything about it is eccentric, upside down, and backward. The love story unfolds in reverse chronology; even the casting reverses our expectations. “Everyone’s playing completely against type,” Kate Winslet said while shooting the film in 2003. “I’m playing the Jim Carrey part. He’s actually playing the sort of Kate Winslet part.” As Clementine, Winslet is colorful and outspoken, while Carrey’s Joel balances her with sensitive introversion.
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry developed the project as the antithesis of a traditional romantic comedy. “I have this adverse reaction to Hollywood romances. They’ve been very damaging to me growing up,” Kaufman told journalist Charlie Rose in 2004. “I thought, well, real life is more interesting, and maybe I should try to explore that and not put more damaging stuff in the world.” In keeping with the goal of realism, Gondry shot most of the playful visual tricks as practical effects without the use of green screen or computers. When Joel encounters himself inside his own head, Jim Carrey ran back and forth across the room off camera to create the illusion of two of him. Some of Carrey’s real childhood memories also found their way into the movie, such as the disturbing scene when bullies force young Joel to smash a dead bird with a hammer.
Jim Carrey in the memory-erasing machine
As in A Clockwork Orange (1971), the science-fiction angle of Eternal Sunshine dwells deep in the subtext and is never fully explained. Clementine and Joel both have all traces of each other erased by Lacuna, Inc., a low-rent medical facility that has devised a method of selectively obliterating memories of a person or event from the brain. “Technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage, but it’s on par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you’ll miss,” Dr. Mierzwiak (surely the screen’s most laid-back mad scientist) casually explains to Joel. Lacuna’s young, fun-loving employees, played by Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, and Elijah Wood, don’t exactly instill patients with confidence as they let their own romantic dramas interfere with the high-tech procedures they perform.
Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet
Mark Ruffalo (seated), Jim Carrey, director Michel Gondry, Elijah Wood, and Kirsten Dunst on the set
After Joel takes a special pill that, according to Kaufman, “knocks you out but keeps your brain activity going,” he’s wired to a machine that zaps his ex-girlfriend from his mind. Though the science may be fictional, the movie accurately depicts how memories form and the power they hold over us. Following the procedure, the lovers retain emotional connections with their memories that have been eliminated, which is how they know to meet each other in Montauk, and why Clementine senses something is awry with her new boyfriend, Patrick. When they hear the audio tapes of their memories at the end, as Gondry observed, “It’s like a time-travel machine.” Since they don’t remember having lived them, discovering their lost memories is akin to an eerie glimpse of an alternate reality.
Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey
Described by Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan as “the bastard child of Philip K. Dick and It’s a Wonderful Life,” Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind earned Kaufman an Academy Award for Best Original Story. The offbeat tale flirts with a host of heady concepts, including destiny, the futility of trying to hold on to the past, and the nature of reality and remembrance. “There’s no objective reality as far as I’m concerned,” Kaufman has said. “There’s only what takes place in your brain. My brain. We have our perceptions, and that’s all we have.” In the first draft of the script, it was explained that Joel and Clementine met and erased each other several times throughout their lives. Keeping the relationship perpetually fresh, they continue to fight, erase their memories, and meet all over again to experience the rapture of new love. Ultimately, their bond cannot be obliterated even by the systematic destruction of their brain cells. With wit, whimsy, and emotional authenticity, Kaufman and Gondry pit love against science, and love wins out.
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