Amazon.co.uk Review
Screenwriters rarely develop a distinctive voice that can be recognized from movie to movie, but the ornate imagination of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has made him a unique and much-needed cinematic presence. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a guy decides to have the memories of his ex-girlfriend erased after she's had him erased from her own memory--but midway through the procedure, he changes his mind and struggles to hang on to their experiences together. In other hands, the premise of memory-erasing would become a trashy science-fiction thriller; Kaufman, along with director Michel Gondry, spins this idea into a funny, sad, structurally complex, and simply enthralling love story that juggles morality, identity, and heartbreak with confident skill. The entire cast--Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, and more--give superb performances, carefully pitched so that cleverness never trumps feeling. A great movie. --Bret Fetzer
Customer Reviews:
One of the Best Films of the Year.......2008-03-12
I love that we live in a decade when something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't just made but is also a major film release. Apart from having to go to a box office and say that title in order to order a ticket, its where that ticket is being sold - at a large multiplex near you. On top of 21 Grams, its as though Hollywood, looking back at the many years of film history, through German Existentialism, French New Wave and the Easy Riders of the sixties, feels some kind of continued obligation to present something intelligent and experimental in amongst its more traditional fare. Which is a great, great thing.
Not that everything within is entirely original. A woman takes the rather rash decision to buy in process in which she has all of the memories of her boyfriend wiped from her mind and in pain and spite he does the same. Deliberate memory loss is a genre stock-in trade - and the appearance of someone in their own head or someone elses rationalizing what is happening is something which has turned up in almost every tv show from Star Trek to Buffy -- hell even the Jennifer Lopez clunker The Cell hung on that very idea. But here it's about execution. And whereas in most other cases its been subservient to some greater plot-arc or subplot, here they're asking the rather bigger questions of why memories are important and how they aid in making us who we are and also how important the people we've met and our collective experiences further our understanding of ourselves.
The writer, Charlie Kauffman is probably one of the most exciting writers we have available. Like Rob Shearman, he takes what are relatively unique characters and places them within an extra-ordinary situation, and makes us care for them as they illuminate our own failings. The problem is that I can't imagine a conventional director tackling the material. So it's a good job that Michel Gondry was available. Together with photographer Ellen Kuras (of Personal Velocity) many fantastic images are created - from the bed on the beach to the bookshop in which all the paperbacks suddenly reverse themselves on the shelves, and sets disappearing along with the guys memory.
Its that ability to produce the credible within the incredible which has attracts such acting talent, and impressively makes them want to do such extraordinarily good work. This is the Jim Carrey film that its OK to like if you usually hate his stupid mugging face. Kate Winslet proves yet again that she's not all about corsets, producing a perfect extrapolation of the Holly Golightly-style fabulous person we all know (when are they going to pass a law which says that everyone should see every film she's in?) Tom Wilkinson and Kirsten Dunst are, well, Tom Wilkinson and Kirsten Dunst, it's interesting to see what Elijah Wood has been doing during The Rings and David Cross continues to be 'that guy'. Not a poor performance amongst them.
The problem is that despite all that its not a film for everyone. If you're looking for some something linear yet enjoyable you might not have the best time. But if Fight Club crossed with Vanilla Sky with a dash of Waking Life sounds like a good thing to you, you're going to love it.
Perfect.......2008-01-11
I have to say that I absolutely love this film. As the film starts, we witness the breakdown of a relationship, and the resultant consequences of drastic decisions made to overcome this break-up. As the film progresses, we see Joel's (Jim Carrey) and Clementine's (Kate Winslet) relationship unfold, and through this we gain insight into them as individuals and as a couple. I felt the cinematography was first class, and the music score simply divine.
I was taken aback by Jim Carrey and his portrayal as Joel, his turn at serious acting was fantastic, and he really gave his character life, although there was one scene where he nearly turned back into the Carrey we've come to expect.
This film gives insight into relationships, experience, and the nature of mind itself. At times, the score and screenplay come together to create breathtaking moments which are pure poetry, almost becoming a study of single snapshots of the couple's life.
I can't recommend this film enough, although I can see that it wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, for me, it was perfect.
Simply wonderful.......2008-01-01
This film is simply beautiful. Each frame looks like it could be printed and sold as a fine art photograph. The acting is amazing from Kate (Well what did you expect?) And I was shocked by how Carrey has tamed his wild personality to play an exceptional, one might say career defining role as the shy, musing; Joel Barish.
This film is simply a joy to watch. Clementine and Joel a prime example of the phrase `opposites attract' in this case it seems to be a Ying-yang situation. She is just what he needs to break out of his shell, and He is just what she needs to be tamed.
The story line, while confusing to begin with, is engaging and original. And, like any good film, I was satisfied with the ending, whilst still wanting more. I went through a full range of emotions, from the joy of watching their relationship blossom, to the anger and disappointment as it fell apart.
I recommend this film to any devotee of fine cinema.
Eternal pleasure.......2007-11-05
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's better-received Being John Malkovich was an amusing but cold oddity; director Michel Gondry's Science of Sleep was not particularly amusing and sickly cute. Sandwiched between was this loving, subtly cautionary romantic 'dramedy' about a young man, Joel (Jim Carrey), undergoing a fantastical scientific operation to remove all memory of his ex-girlfriend, the eccentric Clementine (Kate Winslet). The procedure draws him deep into his subconscious, and we're invited along for the ride. This second collaboration between Kaufman and Gondry (after 2001's Human Nature) has deservedly become something of a cult favourite.
Forget Garden State: while Eternal Sunshine shares a desire to explore the truth behind the human condition through a skewed fish-eye lens, it is mercifully free of that film's cloying sentimentality, its narcissism, and its contempt for a mainline predefined as banal. In Garden State, people are kooky but phoney, shallow and self-absorbed; Eternal Sunshine's Joel, meanwhile, is powerless against his absorption into the strange fearful passions of his dreams. With impressive psychological literacy, Kaufman and Gondry's film shows us the selfishness of human desire and are - crucially - critical of it. Hollywood loves nothing more than to make lovers of ill-suited characters thrown together by circumstance. Not so here: the joy of watching Joel and Clementine's relationship blossom - and fade - is that it is a product of choice as much as chance, and so it is believable.
Winslet puts in a signature performance; her Clementine is the extrovert to Carrey's Joel. Carrey, meanwhile, scribbles out his signature entirely: nary a mug passes across his face. His is a soulful turn of poise and intelligence.
Eternal Sunshine finds its home on DVD - by the third or fourth viewing you should have the fractured narrative pretty much sussed. Plus, it's ideal night-in viewing: warm, friendly, funny, and profound. In a cynical and ironic era, it's heartening to watch a film that finds love so alive and so precious. A classic.
maybe i did not get it.......2007-10-21
i am a big Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet fan but omg what the hell was this film all about
maybe give this a miss and rent instead at your peril
Amazon.co.uk Review
Screenwriters rarely develop a distinctive voice that can be recognized from movie to movie, but the ornate imagination of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has made him a unique and much-needed cinematic presence. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a guy decides to have the memories of his ex-girlfriend erased after she's had him erased from her own memory--but midway through the procedure, he changes his mind and struggles to hang on to their experiences together. In other hands, the premise of memory-erasing would become a trashy science-fiction thriller; Kaufman, along with director Michel Gondry, spins this idea into a funny, sad, structurally complex, and simply enthralling love story that juggles morality, identity, and heartbreak with confident skill. The entire cast--Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, and more--give superb performances, carefully pitched so that cleverness never trumps feeling. A great movie. --Bret Fetzer
Customer Reviews:
One of the Best Films of the Year.......2008-03-12
I love that we live in a decade when something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't just made but is also a major film release. Apart from having to go to a box office and say that title in order to order a ticket, its where that ticket is being sold - at a large multiplex near you. On top of 21 Grams, its as though Hollywood, looking back at the many years of film history, through German Existentialism, French New Wave and the Easy Riders of the sixties, feels some kind of continued obligation to present something intelligent and experimental in amongst its more traditional fare. Which is a great, great thing.
Not that everything within is entirely original. A woman takes the rather rash decision to buy in process in which she has all of the memories of her boyfriend wiped from her mind and in pain and spite he does the same. Deliberate memory loss is a genre stock-in trade - and the appearance of someone in their own head or someone elses rationalizing what is happening is something which has turned up in almost every tv show from Star Trek to Buffy -- hell even the Jennifer Lopez clunker The Cell hung on that very idea. But here it's about execution. And whereas in most other cases its been subservient to some greater plot-arc or subplot, here they're asking the rather bigger questions of why memories are important and how they aid in making us who we are and also how important the people we've met and our collective experiences further our understanding of ourselves.
The writer, Charlie Kauffman is probably one of the most exciting writers we have available. Like Rob Shearman, he takes what are relatively unique characters and places them within an extra-ordinary situation, and makes us care for them as they illuminate our own failings. The problem is that I can't imagine a conventional director tackling the material. So it's a good job that Michel Gondry was available. Together with photographer Ellen Kuras (of Personal Velocity) many fantastic images are created - from the bed on the beach to the bookshop in which all the paperbacks suddenly reverse themselves on the shelves, and sets disappearing along with the guys memory.
Its that ability to produce the credible within the incredible which has attracts such acting talent, and impressively makes them want to do such extraordinarily good work. This is the Jim Carrey film that its OK to like if you usually hate his stupid mugging face. Kate Winslet proves yet again that she's not all about corsets, producing a perfect extrapolation of the Holly Golightly-style fabulous person we all know (when are they going to pass a law which says that everyone should see every film she's in?) Tom Wilkinson and Kirsten Dunst are, well, Tom Wilkinson and Kirsten Dunst, it's interesting to see what Elijah Wood has been doing during The Rings and David Cross continues to be 'that guy'. Not a poor performance amongst them.
The problem is that despite all that its not a film for everyone. If you're looking for some something linear yet enjoyable you might not have the best time. But if Fight Club crossed with Vanilla Sky with a dash of Waking Life sounds like a good thing to you, you're going to love it.
Perfect.......2008-01-11
I have to say that I absolutely love this film. As the film starts, we witness the breakdown of a relationship, and the resultant consequences of drastic decisions made to overcome this break-up. As the film progresses, we see Joel's (Jim Carrey) and Clementine's (Kate Winslet) relationship unfold, and through this we gain insight into them as individuals and as a couple. I felt the cinematography was first class, and the music score simply divine.
I was taken aback by Jim Carrey and his portrayal as Joel, his turn at serious acting was fantastic, and he really gave his character life, although there was one scene where he nearly turned back into the Carrey we've come to expect.
This film gives insight into relationships, experience, and the nature of mind itself. At times, the score and screenplay come together to create breathtaking moments which are pure poetry, almost becoming a study of single snapshots of the couple's life.
I can't recommend this film enough, although I can see that it wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, for me, it was perfect.
Simply wonderful.......2008-01-01
This film is simply beautiful. Each frame looks like it could be printed and sold as a fine art photograph. The acting is amazing from Kate (Well what did you expect?) And I was shocked by how Carrey has tamed his wild personality to play an exceptional, one might say career defining role as the shy, musing; Joel Barish.
This film is simply a joy to watch. Clementine and Joel a prime example of the phrase `opposites attract' in this case it seems to be a Ying-yang situation. She is just what he needs to break out of his shell, and He is just what she needs to be tamed.
The story line, while confusing to begin with, is engaging and original. And, like any good film, I was satisfied with the ending, whilst still wanting more. I went through a full range of emotions, from the joy of watching their relationship blossom, to the anger and disappointment as it fell apart.
I recommend this film to any devotee of fine cinema.
Eternal pleasure.......2007-11-05
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's better-received Being John Malkovich was an amusing but cold oddity; director Michel Gondry's Science of Sleep was not particularly amusing and sickly cute. Sandwiched between was this loving, subtly cautionary romantic 'dramedy' about a young man, Joel (Jim Carrey), undergoing a fantastical scientific operation to remove all memory of his ex-girlfriend, the eccentric Clementine (Kate Winslet). The procedure draws him deep into his subconscious, and we're invited along for the ride. This second collaboration between Kaufman and Gondry (after 2001's Human Nature) has deservedly become something of a cult favourite.
Forget Garden State: while Eternal Sunshine shares a desire to explore the truth behind the human condition through a skewed fish-eye lens, it is mercifully free of that film's cloying sentimentality, its narcissism, and its contempt for a mainline predefined as banal. In Garden State, people are kooky but phoney, shallow and self-absorbed; Eternal Sunshine's Joel, meanwhile, is powerless against his absorption into the strange fearful passions of his dreams. With impressive psychological literacy, Kaufman and Gondry's film shows us the selfishness of human desire and are - crucially - critical of it. Hollywood loves nothing more than to make lovers of ill-suited characters thrown together by circumstance. Not so here: the joy of watching Joel and Clementine's relationship blossom - and fade - is that it is a product of choice as much as chance, and so it is believable.
Winslet puts in a signature performance; her Clementine is the extrovert to Carrey's Joel. Carrey, meanwhile, scribbles out his signature entirely: nary a mug passes across his face. His is a soulful turn of poise and intelligence.
Eternal Sunshine finds its home on DVD - by the third or fourth viewing you should have the fractured narrative pretty much sussed. Plus, it's ideal night-in viewing: warm, friendly, funny, and profound. In a cynical and ironic era, it's heartening to watch a film that finds love so alive and so precious. A classic.
maybe i did not get it.......2007-10-21
i am a big Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet fan but omg what the hell was this film all about
maybe give this a miss and rent instead at your peril
Amazon.co.uk Review
Screenwriters rarely develop a distinctive voice that can be recognized from movie to movie, but the ornate imagination of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has made him a unique and much-needed cinematic presence. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a guy decides to have the memories of his ex-girlfriend erased after she's had him erased from her own memory--but midway through the procedure, he changes his mind and struggles to hang on to their experiences together. In other hands, the premise of memory-erasing would become a trashy science-fiction thriller; Kaufman, along with director Michel Gondry, spins this idea into a funny, sad, structurally complex, and simply enthralling love story that juggles morality, identity, and heartbreak with confident skill. The entire cast--Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, and more--give superb performances, carefully pitched so that cleverness never trumps feeling. A great movie. --Bret Fetzer
Customer Reviews:
One of the Best Films of the Year.......2008-03-12
I love that we live in a decade when something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't just made but is also a major film release. Apart from having to go to a box office and say that title in order to order a ticket, its where that ticket is being sold - at a large multiplex near you. On top of 21 Grams, its as though Hollywood, looking back at the many years of film history, through German Existentialism, French New Wave and the Easy Riders of the sixties, feels some kind of continued obligation to present something intelligent and experimental in amongst its more traditional fare. Which is a great, great thing.
Not that everything within is entirely original. A woman takes the rather rash decision to buy in process in which she has all of the memories of her boyfriend wiped from her mind and in pain and spite he does the same. Deliberate memory loss is a genre stock-in trade - and the appearance of someone in their own head or someone elses rationalizing what is happening is something which has turned up in almost every tv show from Star Trek to Buffy -- hell even the Jennifer Lopez clunker The Cell hung on that very idea. But here it's about execution. And whereas in most other cases its been subservient to some greater plot-arc or subplot, here they're asking the rather bigger questions of why memories are important and how they aid in making us who we are and also how important the people we've met and our collective experiences further our understanding of ourselves.
The writer, Charlie Kauffman is probably one of the most exciting writers we have available. Like Rob Shearman, he takes what are relatively unique characters and places them within an extra-ordinary situation, and makes us care for them as they illuminate our own failings. The problem is that I can't imagine a conventional director tackling the material. So it's a good job that Michel Gondry was available. Together with photographer Ellen Kuras (of Personal Velocity) many fantastic images are created - from the bed on the beach to the bookshop in which all the paperbacks suddenly reverse themselves on the shelves, and sets disappearing along with the guys memory.
Its that ability to produce the credible within the incredible which has attracts such acting talent, and impressively makes them want to do such extraordinarily good work. This is the Jim Carrey film that its OK to like if you usually hate his stupid mugging face. Kate Winslet proves yet again that she's not all about corsets, producing a perfect extrapolation of the Holly Golightly-style fabulous person we all know (when are they going to pass a law which says that everyone should see every film she's in?) Tom Wilkinson and Kirsten Dunst are, well, Tom Wilkinson and Kirsten Dunst, it's interesting to see what Elijah Wood has been doing during The Rings and David Cross continues to be 'that guy'. Not a poor performance amongst them.
The problem is that despite all that its not a film for everyone. If you're looking for some something linear yet enjoyable you might not have the best time. But if Fight Club crossed with Vanilla Sky with a dash of Waking Life sounds like a good thing to you, you're going to love it.
Perfect.......2008-01-11
I have to say that I absolutely love this film. As the film starts, we witness the breakdown of a relationship, and the resultant consequences of drastic decisions made to overcome this break-up. As the film progresses, we see Joel's (Jim Carrey) and Clementine's (Kate Winslet) relationship unfold, and through this we gain insight into them as individuals and as a couple. I felt the cinematography was first class, and the music score simply divine.
I was taken aback by Jim Carrey and his portrayal as Joel, his turn at serious acting was fantastic, and he really gave his character life, although there was one scene where he nearly turned back into the Carrey we've come to expect.
This film gives insight into relationships, experience, and the nature of mind itself. At times, the score and screenplay come together to create breathtaking moments which are pure poetry, almost becoming a study of single snapshots of the couple's life.
I can't recommend this film enough, although I can see that it wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, for me, it was perfect.
Simply wonderful.......2008-01-01
This film is simply beautiful. Each frame looks like it could be printed and sold as a fine art photograph. The acting is amazing from Kate (Well what did you expect?) And I was shocked by how Carrey has tamed his wild personality to play an exceptional, one might say career defining role as the shy, musing; Joel Barish.
This film is simply a joy to watch. Clementine and Joel a prime example of the phrase `opposites attract' in this case it seems to be a Ying-yang situation. She is just what he needs to break out of his shell, and He is just what she needs to be tamed.
The story line, while confusing to begin with, is engaging and original. And, like any good film, I was satisfied with the ending, whilst still wanting more. I went through a full range of emotions, from the joy of watching their relationship blossom, to the anger and disappointment as it fell apart.
I recommend this film to any devotee of fine cinema.
Eternal pleasure.......2007-11-05
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's better-received Being John Malkovich was an amusing but cold oddity; director Michel Gondry's Science of Sleep was not particularly amusing and sickly cute. Sandwiched between was this loving, subtly cautionary romantic 'dramedy' about a young man, Joel (Jim Carrey), undergoing a fantastical scientific operation to remove all memory of his ex-girlfriend, the eccentric Clementine (Kate Winslet). The procedure draws him deep into his subconscious, and we're invited along for the ride. This second collaboration between Kaufman and Gondry (after 2001's Human Nature) has deservedly become something of a cult favourite.
Forget Garden State: while Eternal Sunshine shares a desire to explore the truth behind the human condition through a skewed fish-eye lens, it is mercifully free of that film's cloying sentimentality, its narcissism, and its contempt for a mainline predefined as banal. In Garden State, people are kooky but phoney, shallow and self-absorbed; Eternal Sunshine's Joel, meanwhile, is powerless against his absorption into the strange fearful passions of his dreams. With impressive psychological literacy, Kaufman and Gondry's film shows us the selfishness of human desire and are - crucially - critical of it. Hollywood loves nothing more than to make lovers of ill-suited characters thrown together by circumstance. Not so here: the joy of watching Joel and Clementine's relationship blossom - and fade - is that it is a product of choice as much as chance, and so it is believable.
Winslet puts in a signature performance; her Clementine is the extrovert to Carrey's Joel. Carrey, meanwhile, scribbles out his signature entirely: nary a mug passes across his face. His is a soulful turn of poise and intelligence.
Eternal Sunshine finds its home on DVD - by the third or fourth viewing you should have the fractured narrative pretty much sussed. Plus, it's ideal night-in viewing: warm, friendly, funny, and profound. In a cynical and ironic era, it's heartening to watch a film that finds love so alive and so precious. A classic.
maybe i did not get it.......2007-10-21
i am a big Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet fan but omg what the hell was this film all about
maybe give this a miss and rent instead at your peril
Amazon.co.uk Review
Screenwriters rarely develop a distinctive voice that can be recognized from movie to movie, but the ornate imagination of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has made him a unique and much-needed cinematic presence. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a guy decides to have the memories of his ex-girlfriend erased after she's had him erased from her own memory--but midway through the procedure, he changes his mind and struggles to hang on to their experiences together. In other hands, the premise of memory-erasing would become a trashy science-fiction thriller; Kaufman, along with director Michel Gondry, spins this idea into a funny, sad, structurally complex, and simply enthralling love story that juggles morality, identity, and heartbreak with confident skill. The entire cast--Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, and more--give superb performances, carefully pitched so that cleverness never trumps feeling. A great movie. --Bret Fetzer
Customer Reviews:
One of the Best Films of the Year.......2008-03-12
I love that we live in a decade when something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn't just made but is also a major film release. Apart from having to go to a box office and say that title in order to order a ticket, its where that ticket is being sold - at a large multiplex near you. On top of 21 Grams, its as though Hollywood, looking back at the many years of film history, through German Existentialism, French New Wave and the Easy Riders of the sixties, feels some kind of continued obligation to present something intelligent and experimental in amongst its more traditional fare. Which is a great, great thing.
Not that everything within is entirely original. A woman takes the rather rash decision to buy in process in which she has all of the memories of her boyfriend wiped from her mind and in pain and spite he does the same. Deliberate memory loss is a genre stock-in trade - and the appearance of someone in their own head or someone elses rationalizing what is happening is something which has turned up in almost every tv show from Star Trek to Buffy -- hell even the Jennifer Lopez clunker The Cell hung on that very idea. But here it's about execution. And whereas in most other cases its been subservient to some greater plot-arc or subplot, here they're asking the rather bigger questions of why memories are important and how they aid in making us who we are and also how important the people we've met and our collective experiences further our understanding of ourselves.
The writer, Charlie Kauffman is probably one of the most exciting writers we have available. Like Rob Shearman, he takes what are relatively unique characters and places them within an extra-ordinary situation, and makes us care for them as they illuminate our own failings. The problem is that I can't imagine a conventional director tackling the material. So it's a good job that Michel Gondry was available. Together with photographer Ellen Kuras (of Personal Velocity) many fantastic images are created - from the bed on the beach to the bookshop in which all the paperbacks suddenly reverse themselves on the shelves, and sets disappearing along with the guys memory.
Its that ability to produce the credible within the incredible which has attracts such acting talent, and impressively makes them want to do such extraordinarily good work. This is the Jim Carrey film that its OK to like if you usually hate his stupid mugging face. Kate Winslet proves yet again that she's not all about corsets, producing a perfect extrapolation of the Holly Golightly-style fabulous person we all know (when are they going to pass a law which says that everyone should see every film she's in?) Tom Wilkinson and Kirsten Dunst are, well, Tom Wilkinson and Kirsten Dunst, it's interesting to see what Elijah Wood has been doing during The Rings and David Cross continues to be 'that guy'. Not a poor performance amongst them.
The problem is that despite all that its not a film for everyone. If you're looking for some something linear yet enjoyable you might not have the best time. But if Fight Club crossed with Vanilla Sky with a dash of Waking Life sounds like a good thing to you, you're going to love it.
Perfect.......2008-01-11
I have to say that I absolutely love this film. As the film starts, we witness the breakdown of a relationship, and the resultant consequences of drastic decisions made to overcome this break-up. As the film progresses, we see Joel's (Jim Carrey) and Clementine's (Kate Winslet) relationship unfold, and through this we gain insight into them as individuals and as a couple. I felt the cinematography was first class, and the music score simply divine.
I was taken aback by Jim Carrey and his portrayal as Joel, his turn at serious acting was fantastic, and he really gave his character life, although there was one scene where he nearly turned back into the Carrey we've come to expect.
This film gives insight into relationships, experience, and the nature of mind itself. At times, the score and screenplay come together to create breathtaking moments which are pure poetry, almost becoming a study of single snapshots of the couple's life.
I can't recommend this film enough, although I can see that it wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, for me, it was perfect.
Simply wonderful.......2008-01-01
This film is simply beautiful. Each frame looks like it could be printed and sold as a fine art photograph. The acting is amazing from Kate (Well what did you expect?) And I was shocked by how Carrey has tamed his wild personality to play an exceptional, one might say career defining role as the shy, musing; Joel Barish.
This film is simply a joy to watch. Clementine and Joel a prime example of the phrase `opposites attract' in this case it seems to be a Ying-yang situation. She is just what he needs to break out of his shell, and He is just what she needs to be tamed.
The story line, while confusing to begin with, is engaging and original. And, like any good film, I was satisfied with the ending, whilst still wanting more. I went through a full range of emotions, from the joy of watching their relationship blossom, to the anger and disappointment as it fell apart.
I recommend this film to any devotee of fine cinema.
Eternal pleasure.......2007-11-05
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's better-received Being John Malkovich was an amusing but cold oddity; director Michel Gondry's Science of Sleep was not particularly amusing and sickly cute. Sandwiched between was this loving, subtly cautionary romantic 'dramedy' about a young man, Joel (Jim Carrey), undergoing a fantastical scientific operation to remove all memory of his ex-girlfriend, the eccentric Clementine (Kate Winslet). The procedure draws him deep into his subconscious, and we're invited along for the ride. This second collaboration between Kaufman and Gondry (after 2001's Human Nature) has deservedly become something of a cult favourite.
Forget Garden State: while Eternal Sunshine shares a desire to explore the truth behind the human condition through a skewed fish-eye lens, it is mercifully free of that film's cloying sentimentality, its narcissism, and its contempt for a mainline predefined as banal. In Garden State, people are kooky but phoney, shallow and self-absorbed; Eternal Sunshine's Joel, meanwhile, is powerless against his absorption into the strange fearful passions of his dreams. With impressive psychological literacy, Kaufman and Gondry's film shows us the selfishness of human desire and are - crucially - critical of it. Hollywood loves nothing more than to make lovers of ill-suited characters thrown together by circumstance. Not so here: the joy of watching Joel and Clementine's relationship blossom - and fade - is that it is a product of choice as much as chance, and so it is believable.
Winslet puts in a signature performance; her Clementine is the extrovert to Carrey's Joel. Carrey, meanwhile, scribbles out his signature entirely: nary a mug passes across his face. His is a soulful turn of poise and intelligence.
Eternal Sunshine finds its home on DVD - by the third or fourth viewing you should have the fractured narrative pretty much sussed. Plus, it's ideal night-in viewing: warm, friendly, funny, and profound. In a cynical and ironic era, it's heartening to watch a film that finds love so alive and so precious. A classic.
maybe i did not get it.......2007-10-21
i am a big Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet fan but omg what the hell was this film all about
maybe give this a miss and rent instead at your peril
DVD Review:
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- Farscape - The Complete Season 3 [1999]
- Fluke [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Godzilla --Superbit [1998]
- Good Bye, Lenin! [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Groundhog Day [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Hercules in New York [1970] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
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DVD Review List
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Lost In Translation [2004]
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