Next up was the latest film on release written by the excellent Charlie Kaufman, who collaborated with fellow video director Spike Jonze on Adaptation (2002) and Being John Malkovich (1999), and with George Clooney on the nowhere near as good Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002).
Eternal Sunshine is probably Kaufman’s best script to date. Although not as funny as his Spike Jones movies, it’s the most successful at staying focused on the central narrative. In this case Kaufman’s trademark open questioning looks at the impact past relationships have on our future selves, about the value and humanness of failure, at whether people really benefit from recognising their mistakes and limitations.
In the film, people who have experienced the crushing heartbreak of relationship meltdown are given the opportunity of erasing all memory of their former loved one. Using a technique similar to ECT, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (played by Tom Wilkinson) is able to pinpoint the areas of your brain where the memories are stored and zap them. All objects that have an association to the deleted person are removed from the patients physical lives, cards are sent to all mutual friends asking them never to speak of the person again, and the patient wakes up the next morning unaware that the procedure has taken place.
The direction is great – Jim ‘rubber neck’ Carrey is kept from expressing the slightest hint of a gurn as strait-laced scaredy cat Joel and subsequently, it’s actually believable that you might find him attractive for once.
But you haven't mentioned Gondry ONCE! :-)
Posted by: trashcanglam | October 17, 2004 at 09:40 PM