Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind marks the latest in a string of bizarre character pieces from screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, a master of delicately pathological characters and altered states of reality. Featuring Jim Carrey’s first dramatic role since his widely ignored performance in 2001’s The Majestic, Sunshine relies heavily on Carrey and his fellow actors’ abilities to embody the intensely subtle characters of Kaufman’s screenplay.
Eternal Sunshine opens with Carrey as Joel Barish, a drone in an unspecified profession who decides to blow off work one gray Valentine’s Day for a trip to the beach.
On the train home, the bouncy Clementine (Kate Winslet) chats up Barish. During midnight stargazing on a frozen Charles River, romance sparks and Barish feels happy for the first time in a long time. Once the two arrange to finish off the date at his place, the setup for an eccentric romantic comedy is complete.
Suddenly, we go back to Feb. 13, when a confused Barish asks close friends why his girlfriend Clementine no longer seems to recognize him. They hand him a note revealing that Clementine decided to have Joel erased from her memory. Flabbergasted, Joel goes to see Dr. Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), who invented the procedure she used.
Joel decides to erase Clementine from his mind, and we are carried back through his relationship with Clementine, from their final argument back to their first meeting, as lab technicians Stan (Mark Ruffalo), Patrick (Elijah Wood) and Mary (Kirsten Dunst) obliterate Joel’s memories of her one by one.
The sprawling two-hour mind trip develops startling emotional weight as it progresses, with the final 30 minutes providing subtle wisdom about the nature of relationships.
Eternal Sunshine is about the persistence of emotion, independent of memory, as Clementine and Joel repeat many of the experiences erased by Dr. Mierzwiak and his team.
Just as Adaptation examined the cycle and preciousness of life, Eternal Sunshine provides a touching message of imperfect love: Happiness followed by misery is more precious than blissful ignorance.