ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

I like a movie I can chew on. When I find one, I gnaw on it like delicious beef jerky. Unfortunately, just like with delicious beef jerky, "intelligent" movies often leave you with that one gristly plot kernel that will just not properly dissolve. Usually, it’s an unanswered question like, "How were all those old people planning to live in John Malkovich together?" or "What the fuck did Bill Murray say to that one chick at the end of Lost In Translation?" Typically, I’m a big defender of the mind-fuck. "Gives you something to ponder," I say. Or: "Life doesn’t tie up neatly, and true art imitates life." Clearly, I’m full of shit.
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind has opened my eyes to what a movie is capable of. Like finally dating a cool chick, and realizing every girl you ever dated was a straight-up bitch.
The premise is, of course, weird. Apparently, people are all the time having their memories erased. Not in an over-the-top Total Recall way. Just ordinary people disposing of breakups, untimely deaths, and the like. All bouts of heartache, sorrow, or despair have been reduced to mere inconveniences. Like Lasik surgery for the mind. It’s all just real enough to feel creepy. But the beginning gives you no hint of what’s to come. Just two random people meeting on the deserted shores of Montauk Beach in February.
Turns out that the girl Joel (Jim Carrey) ran into was his ex-girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), who, a few days before, had had her memories of him erased. He discovers this, and then decides in a fit of retaliatory rage to do the same to his memories of her. Still with me? Because that’s just the first ten minutes-- and it’s about to get a little strange.
The rest of the movie takes us through his memories as they’re being deleted. At first, it’s a relief as memories of fights and uncomfortable moments disappear piece by piece, or fall apart in a way that I just realized reminds me an awful lot of The NeverEnding Story. But the process quickly moves into the good memories. Frolicking on the beach, sex, snuggling, and snowballs. This is when Joel changes his mind. Too bad he’s knocked out.
So, the remainder of the movie centers on Joel trying to hide Clementine in memories that the technicians won’t find. It’s kind of a character study wrapped in a science fiction premise, with a tasteful hint of "patient who woke up in the middle of surgery" discomfort.
Initially, I thought the memories falling apart gimmick would get old. It didn’t. I thought the fact that the technicians were smoking pot and drinking while doing the procedure was just an amusing distraction from the real story. It wasn’t. And I thought that this movie would either leave me confused or would beat me over the head with a neatly wrapped ending. It so didn’t.
In fact, where this movie really shines is exactly where so many fail. It doesn’t wrap up all blatantly stupid-perfect like every Hollywood/Spielberg movie ever, and it doesn’t leave the viewer floundering like every David Lynch movie ever. It walks the ultra-fine line between "open-ended" and "retarded obvious". Never did I feel like the movie was giving me an elbow nudge and a "Catch that, dumbass?" At the same time, I’ve got plenty to think about. The movie respected me, and therefore, I respect it. Really. A lot.