Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Review

After seeing "Synecdoche, New York" and "Being John Malkovich," it has been a task of mine to watch Charlie Kaufman produced scripts, as they are very intriguing and extremely original. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is Kaufman's 2004 Academy Award winning script, and follows a couple played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet who undergo a procedure to erase their memories of each other after breaking up. Directed by Michel Gondry, who is credited with directing music videos for artists such as Björk, The Rolling Stones, and The White Stripes, as well as many other 90s and 2000s groups. Gondry is known for his application of visualization, and conveying messages through optic aspects such as the production design, lighting, and the composition of the shot. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" confronts relationship issues that many people may not want to attack, and does so I'm an authentic manner, while straying far away from a traditional romantic-comedy narrative. This film follows somewhat of a nonlinear narrative, and grabs the audience in and makes them pay attention and start to figure out the time frame in which certain events or scenes are taking place. The way that the story begins to unravel occurs through Jim Carrey's perspective, and is pretty neat once you figure out how it starts to come together, connecting different parts of the film together at different times. Jim Carrey plays one of his best roles ever. Known for being a funny man, Carrey diverges completely from that stereotype, and becomes an introverted person who has a rather mopey outlook on life, although he does want to find what makes him happy. Kate Winslet is Jim Carrey's polar opposite, as she is super jittery and spunky, but very impulsive and emotional. These character traits are developed in the first scene that we see with both of them in, which allows the exploration of their relationships, as well as a central theme about relationships in general to radiate throughout the film. Instead of the use of warm colors in a lot of films involving romance, it is juxtaposed with a wintry setting, with lots of blue and purple themes that describe the nature of their relationship. Kaufman employs Carrey and Winslet to make points about the way couples react with one another, capturing both sides of the story, with each side having their own flaw. There is a lot to say about how people want to return to something, even though they know how it might turn out, an idea that was explored later in "Synecdoche, New York." Gondry captures the visual facet of the film rather brilliantly. The visual effects in this movie are actually really cool, and I was not expecting this out of a film that is supposed to be a romance. Gondry manipulates the camera in some very unique ways, and there are some really cools scenes in this movie that help develop the film's themes and are simply fun to look at. The only problems I had with this film concerned a subplot that involved Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Wilkinson. The technicians responsible for the memory erasing treatment create sort of a love triangle that felt that it took away from the film's main ideas, and made the movie drag in certain spots because of it. Mark Ruffalo does a good job, but his character doesn't feel needed in the final product. Aside from that, this is a very good movie, and although is has some comedic elements, I feel it is more dramatic and has some good points to say about relationships and how people view them, and may even cause some melancholy or reminiscent feelings to some viewers. This has been my favorite Charlie Kaufman story that I have seen so far, and film lovers should really like it.  A