Movie Review: "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" (2004)

Here's an example of a movie that exceeded all my expectations.
Imagine two hours thinking you're watching a pretty linear movie and less than halfway through turns into the biggest headtrip you'd ever experience awake.
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is another screwed up (and with it I mean brilliant) creation of Charlie Kaufman of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation fame. The first two were made with director Spike Jonze who himself is a borderline film genius/psycho. This time Michael Gondry (Human Nature, also with Kaufman) takes the director's chair. And with brilliance, I may add.
Jim Carrey plays Joel, an out on his luck introvert who has enough self confidence issues to make Woody Allen look like Fabio. He meets Clementine, played by Kate Winslet, an impulsive, free spirit who makes rash decisions as often as she changes the color of her hair. Clemetine and Joel's relationship hits the rocks and decide to break up. Clementine has all memories of Joel erased from her mind through a company called Lacuna Inc. Joel is devastated as he meets her again, but Clementine doesn't remember him. He was advised by his best friends to take the treatment as well and be better off. Joel, although only half decided, takes the plunge. The Lacuna guys, headed by Dr. Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) and his assistants Stan (Mark Ruffalo) Mary (Kirsten Dunst) and Patrick (Elijah Wood) and make a map of his brain to find which memories to erase. During the treatment he is asleep and sees each memory zapped out. He feels his love still undiminished and decides to call it off IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TREATMENT! He chases his memories around his head trying to save what's left of Clementine in his head, giving the Lacuna treatment a run for its money.

The film contains Kaufman's trademark trippy scenarios. Extremely eccentric characters, entering a person's mind, taking a peek at their embarassing memories, inferiority complexes and outlandish, trashy settings.

The film kind of has a seventies feel all throughout, mostly because of the outated costumes and grainy 8'' film used for most of the scenes. Fans of the Blair Witch Project may feel familiar with some of the memory chasing scenes.
A great headtrip with an interesting premise, what if we could erase the memory of a lost love, do we also lose what's in our heart?

I hear copycats typing already.

Rocketboy's Rating: **** (4 out of 5)