Directed by Frenchman Michel Gondry, the film presents a wonderfully surreal, imaginative and down-to-earth vision of relationships and life. He does so in part by utilising a wonderful script by Charlie Kaufman (‘Being John Malkovich’ and ‘Adaptation’) and avoids the overuse of CGI tricks with “in camera” special effects. The acting performances too are spot on, especially Jim Carrey’s withdrawn, introverted, and poignantly insecure portrayal of Joel. Usually all over the screen (and that’s just his facial expressions), in ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ Carrey’s trademark manic style of comic acting is almost totally dispensed with. There are a small number of scenes which call on his particular brand of humour, but even then it’s very much toned down and in keeping with the character and his situation.

The basic premise of the story is that Joel is in love with Kate Winslet’s Clementine, a woman who dyes her hair bright red, orange, green or blue, and who works in a bookshop. Clementine is a free spirit with a hippyish lifestyle and a fondness for bad language and potato head ornaments. She’s an impulsive character and as their relationship breaks down she indulges in the ultimate impulsive act: she has her memories of Joel erased. Angered and hurt, Joel decides to do the same thing. But partway through the procedure, lying unconscious, he suddenly realises as his memories are being erased one by one that he loves Clementine and doesn’t want to forget her. His interior Clementine comes up with suggestions on how to keep his memories of her alive, including hiding her among his childhood memories and other places where the memory erasing shouldn’t find her. It’s a race against time, played out in surreal situations and memories, and in the winding corridors of the mind.

This is intercut with the real-life Clementine falling apart psychologically. She knows something is wrong, but not only does she not remember Joel, she doesn’t remember having him erased. Further confused by that fact that one of the memory erasers is now her boyfriend (Elijah Wood), a man who repeats Joel’s old lines to her, she feels compelled to go to places she visited with Joel without really knowing why. The inner and outer battle to hold onto memory and love is matched by the relationships around them involving the Lacuna memory erasers. Ultimately, the film is about the resilience of love and the need to ground relationships in the real world of flawed personalities and disappointments. It also points to the human tendency to retread old paths.

The rest of the cast: Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood and Tom Wilkinson all turn in good performances. Wilkinson is the inventor of the memory erasing process and the owner of Lacuna Inc. Dunst works as his receptionist, a woman fond of quotes: “Blessed are the forgetful for they get the better even of their blunders.” (Nietzsche) It’s one of these quotes, from Alexander Pope’s ‘Eloisa to Abelard,’ that gives the film it’s title:

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.

There are some wonderful moments of humour at Lacuna, which offers special New Year memory erasing deals, and where the run up to Valentine’s Day is one of their busiest periods. One woman rings up for her third erasing in one month. Clients are required to gather all their mementos of the person they wish to erase, but as they sit in the waiting room, it’s clear it’s not just humans they want to forget, but pets and past glories. While the sight of these people may initially be humorous, further viewings make the image of a woman sitting with her dog’s bowl rather more touching than funny. The kind of pain and loss that would drive someone to erase their memories of a loved one, human or animal, is far from a joke. But the film nevertheless ploughs through this territory with a tone both optimistic and poignant.

There are some wonderful images in ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ including Joel and Clementine lying on a frozen lake and lying in a bed on a wintry beach. Sometimes they’re replaced by their childhood selves. The intricate non-chronological ordering of the scenes and memories creates further depth. What we think at the outset is the beginning of the relationship is in fact something else altogether. The credits don’t appear until seventeen minutes into the film. What plays out before that is not quite what it seems and it’s only at the end that we truly understand the context of the beginning. The changing colour of Winslet’s hair becomes a marker for the different periods in their relationship, and helps the viewer sort through the scenes and make sense of their real order.

‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ is a merging of European and American Independent influences, presented with Hollywood names. It’s not cute or cynical, nor glossy and glamorous, but an honest and imaginative portrayal of love and the need for compromise in relationships.