Movie Review - "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" 03/19/04

 This is a movie review for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", released March 19, 2004. Watched this on Netflix.

Trailer:

Cast:

Jim Carrey ("The Mask" (1994) Stanley Ipkiss / The Mask, "The Cable Guy" (1996) The Cable Guy)      -       Joel Barish
Kate Winslet ("Titanic" (1997) Rose DeWitt Bukater, "Divergent" (2014) Jeanine)     -      Clementine Kruczynski
Elijah Wood ("The Lord of the Rings" (Movie Franchise, 2001/2002/2003) Frodo Baggins, "Happy Feet" (2006) Mumble (Voice))  -     Patrick
Mark Ruffalo ("13 Going on 30" (2004) Matt Flamhaff, "The Avengers" (2012) Bruce Banner / The Hulk)    -         Stan
Kirsten Dunst ("Spiderman" (Movie Franchise, 2002/2004/2007) Mary Jane Watson, "Kiki's Delivery Service" (1989) Kiki (English version, voice))  -       Mary

Plot:

In a world where you can erase someone or something that is painful to you (makes you cry), a man named Joel fell in love with a woman named Clementine. One day, he finds out that she erased him from her memory. She doesn't know who he is anymore. In revenge, he decided that he should erase her from his memory. Maybe that will be the best, to forget someone who has decided to forget you. However, is erasing memories of someone completely (both the good and the bad) the best way to go or is there a middle ground?

Criteria:

0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.

1/5 – Barely worth any time.

2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.

3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.

4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.

5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.

3.5/5 - This is a crazy movie. Talk about mental!

If you like psychological movies, this is right up your alley. The movie is discombobulated at best. The time line of the characters is not even straight. You can't tell how much is in his head or how much is in the real world. You see a scene and find out later that that scene happens WAY later in the chronological sequence of events. Great, let's just put a scene that happened later as one of the first scenes of the movie. Or was it actually at the beginning. I am confused just thinking about it. It makes your head hurt, but it is very good at being so convoluted. I don't give that praise lightly, mind you! Not many movies can be so complex and be praised for being such!

Aside the fact that the movie is so twisted upon itself regarding the chronological order of events, this was a very artistic and beautiful movie {hence the higher score}. It makes one think about the reality of what memories are. If memories were erasable like words from a white board, would it be worth the risk to try to erase the memories? If you said "erase (...)" and you didn't realize that you couldn't keep the good memories [like the time when you shared an ice cream cone, or when you danced in the rain together, or making a book fort together], how would you save the good memories?

Since this movie was based in the mind of Joel {played by Jim Carrey}, it makes sense that the movie's order would be messed up. The mind doesn't always file the memories in a filing cabinet, ya know. However, it really gets your mind spinning about trying to figure out if the scene happened before Clementine erased Joel from her memory or if it happened after they tried to remember each other.

If you don't like straight forward time lines, don't watch this movie! Seriously, my brain hurts just recalling the movie...

If you like really strange, psychological movies, go for this one! It is very very strange. It really gets you thinking and really shakes you up. ^.^;

Will I watch this again? Most likely not, but I don't regret watching it.





~yume