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Hall Of Fame – Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

SPOILER ALERT!! If you have not seen this film then you need to watch it before reading this article. Unless you like having everything about a movie spoiled before watching it, if so, you can proceed.

In 2004, Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman joined their weird psychedelic abilities for the delightfully nonsensical to create what would become one of my favourite movies of all time. Starring Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is a tale about love, loss and being grateful for the painful times in your life, just as much as you are the good times. It’s a beautiful piece of cinema and I’m more than happy to induct it into the SYDHiT Hall of Fame.

The premise for the film is a simple one, but the story is told in such a disjointed manner that it keeps you wondering what the hell is going on all the way up until the end. Much like other films that tell their stories out of order, repeated viewings are just as exciting as the first because you notice things you hadn’t noticed the first time around, due to the fact that you now know the full story.

ESotSM tells the story of Joel Barish (Carrey) and Clementine Kruczynski (Winslet), two entirely different people who fall in love with each other because of those differences. Once the relationship falls apart, Clementine visits a company that promises to erase her mind of every memory she ever shared with Joel. Joel is unaware that she has had her mind erased until he goes to visit Clementine at her workplace and she has no recollection of who he is. Joel decides that he wants to have the procedure done as well, which entails ridding his house of everything that reminds him of Clementine and having his mind wiped by the company over the course of one night. During the process, however, Joel realises that Clementine bought more joy to his life than pain and doesn’t want to go through with the mind wipe anymore, he wants to keep those memories no matter how painful, so he tries to hide Clementine – his memories of her – away from the machine before she’s completely gone.

Even if you’ve never been in love, this film speaks to something inside all of us. The main plot of the film revolves around love, yes, but ultimately this is a film about pain and moving on from it, learning from it so that you can become a better person because of it. You realise during the course of the film that Joel is not only getting rid of Clementine, he’s removing a part of himself. The two years that they spent together may not have all been happy times, but they’ve helped each other come to terms with their best and worst aspects. By erasing each other they’re erasing everything they’ve learned from the other person.

Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey portray the characters splendidly. Carrey had played a couple of serious roles before this film, but this is the one where he proved to be more than just a crazy goofy guy with a stretchy face. He has many scenes that require real acting chops and he pulls it off flawlessly. Winslet is her usual loveable self, even in the scenes where Clementine is being a bitch to Joel, you want to hate her but you just can’t. The other two standout performances are from Kirsten Dunst and Tom Wilkinson. Both are great in their roles as co-workers with a history that only one of them remembers…

Direction by Michel Gondry is also amazing. There are a lot of one-take shots that feature camera trickery to get the twisted point across. If you listen to the DVD commentary you’ll be amazed to find out just how they pulled off some of the shots. They had such a tiny budget for this film and by having Gondry direct it they accomplished many in-camera tricks that most filmmakers would have resorted to CGI for. The overall look and feel of this film is beautiful and without Gondry directing I doubt it would have ended up as wonderful as it did.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is possibly my most favourite film of all time, or at least close to it. If you love the film as much as I do then have your say in the comments below. If you don’t like it as much as me then I’d love to hear your reasons why, but for me, this film is near perfect and was an easy choice for the SYDHiT Hall of Fame.