Two mad geniuses and a lot of other talented people transform the crazy ideas embedded in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind into a shimmering work of sheer brilliance -- and an early Oscar contender for 2004.
The two wonderful madmen are comic actor Jim Carrey, who goes serious again in the best performance of his career, and maverick screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, who is revolutionizing Hollywood with his crazy ideas and embedding them in movies about the human condition.
Carrey is teamed with a diverse, sparkling cast including Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo and even Elijah Wood, who shucks off Frodo's cloak and kicks off his Hobbit feet for a support role as a crafty weasel who will do anything for sex and romance.
Eternal Sunshine is an adult love story constructed around Carrey and Winslet. Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind) gives them all something to chew on, something that twists the film into a demented yet mesmerizing lesson in relationships. This sophisticated, challenging film is not for Ace Ventura fans. Like in real life, Eternal Sunshine has funny moments but it is a drama and not a comedy.
There is also a science-fiction element, but that is a device, not an end, because the core of a Kaufman creation is always the interplay of emotions and the resolution of conflict.
This story hinges on a hi-tech, futuristic brain machine that allows a doctor to selectively wipe out a patient's memory banks. Especially after a relationship ends badly, a person can eliminate all traces of his/her partner.
Winslet has it done when her two-year romance with Carrey collapses into mutual distrust and open hostility. In turn, when he discovers her subterfuge, he angrily tries to have it done, too. During his process, however, things go awry and the very nature of falling in love, plus the hard work involved in staying in love, is explored in agonizing detail.
The film is structured with a reverse chronology -- but even that makes it sound simpler than it is. Many scenes -- those taking place in Carrey's brain while the technicians track down his memories of Winslet -- are fractured, time-shifting, elusive moments much like our dreamscapes.
While Carrey explores two years in his life with Winslet, we see one night in the work of the technicians, a team headed by Tom Wilkinson but comprised of Ruffalo, Wood and Dunst. Their complex interactions, which lead to disaster, are given as much credibility and almost as much screen time as what is happening in the main story. That puts Eternal Sunshine into a state of grace in terms of balance.
Carrey never mugs or relies on his stupid pet tricks. He never overacts. He is self-contained, but lets us see his reservoir of pain and angst. With tragedy plain on his face, that is as chillingly real as it is effective in making his flawed, emotionally repressed character so human.
Winslet is Carrey's equal, playing a flashier role -- a tempestuous New Yorker with a penchant for mood shifts, hair colour changes and sexual prowess. Fun yet dangerous.
Everyone else on screen is flawless. Kudos go to French director Michel Gondry for his casting and guerrilla-style filmmaking. Having made the messy although fascinating Kaufman creation Human Nature, too, Gondry now understands this mad genius and has refined his own filmmaking techniques. This time around, they got it almost perfect.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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