Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate
Winslet
Cert: 15
Released: 30th
April
I’m not sure whether this is
actually a comedy, per se, or the laughs just come from how frikkin’ off
the wall the story is.
Eternal Sunshine was
written by Charlie Kaufman, who also wrote Being John Malkovich and
Adaptation, so you know it’s going to be, at least,
slightly odd.
Joel (Carrey) is an introverted,
unassuming man who works, goes home and is generally unhappy with his lot. But
one morning he wakes up in a mood and decides to catch a train going in the
opposite direction to work. He ends up on a beach, meets Clementine (Winslet) -
who is extrovert - and the sparks fly.
After a date we are presented
with a series of flashbacks and we discover that Joel and Clementine already had
a history but she got him removed from her memory and he got so upset that he
did the same to her. But as the erasing process takes place Joel has second
thoughts about it but he’s locked in his own mind so tries to hide his last
memories of Clementine in some of the more repressed moments of his mind.
The character role reversal for
Carrey and Winslet is funny enough then topped with him downsized to a four year
old boy and her superimposed into his childhood memories makes truly laugh-out
loud scenarios.
A sub-plot involving the
employees of the mind-wiping company provides a resolution (of sorts) in what
seems to be a tale bound for tragedy.
Don’t expect wild gurning from
Carrey, this is not ‘his’ film. This is pure Kaufman and Eternal
Sunshine is as humorous, quirky, and human as
his previous tales.
