The Republic of T. Archives

Katharine asked, so I thought I’d offer up a review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s premise, of people erasing certain memories from their brains, was enough to draw me in despite the fact that it stars Jim Carrey. Now, I don’t have anything against Jim Carrey. I thought he was brilliant on In Living Color. It’s just that, most of the time, I can’t watch his movies. Eternal Sunshine and The Truman Show are the only ones I’ve ever been able to sit through, and even enjoy. Maybe it’s because each time Carey was playing a role markedly different from characters he’s played in many of his other movies. (What’s most interesting is that Carrey says his character in Eternal Sunshine is closest to what he’s like when he’s not performing or “on.”

Anything having to do with memory usualy interests me, because I have so much trouble with mine. That’s part of the reason I was interested in seeing Memento. (I loved it, the hubby didn’t.) Plus, the idea of being able to erase certain memories, usually painful or unpleasant ones, and to be rid of their effects—as if they never happened—has a particularly strong appeal to me, maybe because of my ADD and the past failures related to it. There are certain memories I’d probably erase, given the chance, and I wonder what it would be like to be rid of the effects of those memories.

It’s that element, the counterfactual or “what if” element, that draws you into Eternal Sunshine but it’s the writing and characterization that keeps you interested. There are a couple of tricks and twists in the plot that I want to be careful not to give away, but if I could give one hint I’d say that the beginning is not the beginning, and the end is not the end.

Essentially, it’s about two people—lovers—who meet each other again for the first time. It would have been too easy for writers and the director to treat the movie and it’s themes with cloying sentimentality, and go for the cliché ending. Admirably, they didn’t, and things don’t go quite the way that a more cynical viewer might be inclined to predict halfway through the film. And yes, I was that cynical viewer, predicting the outcome halfway through movie, and I was wrong, but happily so.

One of the most important elements of storytelling is knowing when to stop telling the story. Too soon, and it ends up lacking depth and complexity. Too early, and you miss the right moment to end it. Everyone involved here gets it right, and leaves you thinking about the story and wondering what happened to the characters when it ends.

That’s an achievement in and of itself, because the characters are somewhat hard to like. Carrey’s character isn’t all that impresseive, kinda boring, but somewhat sympathetic; he’s the prototypical guy living a life of “quiet depseration.” Kate Winslet’s character, by contrast, comes with a full-on case of borderline personality disorder. (Oh, speaking of characterizations, the adorable Elijah Wood makes some progress here towards shaking his hobbit-image.) Seriously, there were moments I was asking “Why does he want to stay with her?” Then I remembered, “quiet desperation.” Either way, in the end you do kinda want them to stay together or at least work it out.

But I’m not sure that it really works out. It feels like it does, but with bits of memory scattered everywhere, who knows? Maybe erasing “bad,” painful, or inconvenient memories isn’t a cure all; if those “tapes” are ever even erased in the first place. Sometimes ghosts of memories remain anyway. So the “spotless mind” is an impossibility, and what is has to be accepted, “spots” and all.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 18th, 2005 at 9:21 pm and is filed under ADD/ADHD, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.