Movie Review The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

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2004 – Spoiler alerts There should be a law that anyone moaning that Jim Carrey only ever overacts and gurns as he does when playing Ace Ventura, should be forced to watched his steady realistic Oscar worthy performance in this extraordinary romantic fantasy movie. Carrey discovers that his new lover, Clementine, (Kate Winslett) is actually a former girlfriend he had erased from his memory by a mysterious agency, Lacuna, after she had her memories of him eradicated too. The film flicks from their present meeting to Carrey’s Joel Barrish receiving his treatment while he sleeps, and realizing as it goes on that he really does still love Clementine. He struggles to hide some traces of her in his subconscious so the doctors invading his dreams and memories can’t find her. There are astonishing dream-like sequences, as Joel hears the doctors talking as he looks for the fading moments he has shared with Clementine; houses they lived in disintegrate round them as though airbrushed away, memories blur into one another. Joel learns that one of the doctors has stolen his detailed notes on the relationship to seduce Clementine, recreating Joel’s life as his own. Another member of the Lacuna team has ethical doubts about what the procedure does to people and tells all the patients treated what they have lost, as Joel and Clementine decide to start again, despite their relationship imploding last time round. Original to the point of being utterly unique and beautifully acted by all. The title comes from a poem by Alexander Pope which is recited by Kirsten Dunst during the movie. Arthur Chappell