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Meet Joel Barish (Jim Carrey). He's a middle-aged
jaded man who goes through the monotony of life scared that
everything is a personal assault on his well being and emotional
stability. Not an impulsive man by any means, even Joel
finds it odd when he randomly ditches work and takes the
first train out to Montauk. In Montauk Joel keeps running
into this quirky girl with a bright orange sweatshirt and
equally bright blue hair. Her name is Clementine Krashinski
(Kate Winslet) and she happens to have an uncanny feeling
that they've met before.
An uncomfortable air surrounds the two and
their precarious conversations on the bus ride back home.
But eventually the two head to Clementine's house for drinks
and she impulsively declares she will marry him, after they
head out to the lake for a nighttime picnic. Following her
fancy whims Joel lets Clementine take him on a unique experience
with the blue-haired seductress. The next day she coyly
suggests she go back to his place. While upstairs fetching
her toothbrush a strange boy raps on Joel's window and inquires
as to why he is at Clementine's apartment.
Pan backwards in time to a distraught Joel
Barish who is beat up about the latest breakup with his
girlfriend Clementine. After an unfortunate quarrel, Clementine
seems to have impulsively sought to erase him from her mind,
hiring Lacuna to do the damage. When Joel prepares to make
amends he walks into her work only to find her staring blankly
at him as if she's never seen him before. That's when Joel
seeks out Lacuna corporations and questions Dr. Mierzwiak
(Tom Wilkinson) as to why Clementine no longer recognizes
him. Understanding her to have completely wiped him from
her memory, Joel decides the only way he can move past the
tragedy of their breakup laden with memorabilia and memories
of better days once spent, Joel, too, decides to wipe Clementine
from his mind.
Returning the next day with bags of memorabilia
connected to the memory of Clementine, Joel once more fills
out the forms that Lacuna's head secretary Mary (Kirsten
Dunst) assigns. Once the menial tasks are complete, Joel
is assigned to Stan (Mark Ruffalo) who will oversee the
technical portion of the memory erasing procedure. Instructed
to put on the Lacuna pajamas and take a certain pill prior
to sleep, Joel heads home prepared to obliterate Clementine's
memory. Meanwhile, in his semi-comatose state, Stan and
Patrick (Elijah Wood) head to Joel's apartment to begin
the procedure. One by one Stan traces down Joel's memories
and deletes them via his cognitive map. Meanwhile Joel is
trying to comprehend what's happening as he begins to experience
heavy dejavous in his dreams/memories which are morphing
and disappearing before his eyes.
As Joel walks from one room to snow-filled
beaches, to libraries, all the memories linked to Clementine
become juxtaposed as they appear and disappear, evolve and
dissolve before Joel's very eyes. Meanwhile Stan is erasing
all the painful memories of Clementine and Joel's volatile
end. But working backwards, eventually Stan encounters memories
that are pleasant, that tell of the reason the two were
together in the first place. Joel begins to see how much
he truly loves Clementine and begins to try to mentally
fight the process; attempting to negate the procedure and
hide 'Clementine', or the memory of, away in the smallest
nooks of his memory where Stan can't trace them down.
Meanwhile Patrick tells Stan that he has fallen
for Clementine and that the two are now dating. Moreover
he is stealing Joel's former memorabilia and is using it
to court Clementine, which begins to freak her out. Nevertheless
she calls him over and he leaves Stan to finish the procedure
alone, that is, until his girlfriend Mary shows up and the
two get high and party on the bed right next to the unconscious
Joel. But as the two philander in their stoned state, Joel
is developing a resistance to the procedure and begins to
try to wake up to stop the memory erasing. That's when mayhem
breaks out and memories keep reappearing and disappearing
and morphing into other dreams, etc. Enter Dr. Mierzwiak
who comes to save the day and get Joel back on track.
But while Dr. Mierzwiak hunts down Joel and
Clementine in Joel's memory bank, the two lovers begin to
plot a way to preserve her memory before it's too late.
Trying to force her into memories where she doesn't belong,
and or conjuring her existence in the depths of his imagination,
Joel's memories turn into weird whimsical dreams as he and
Clementine begin to role-play events of childhood and his
imagination. Meanwhile Mary is gushing over Dr. Mierzwiak's
genius, only to discover that she was a former patient and
that her current crush is only a reemergence of a former
passion she once had for the Doctor with whom she had an
affair. Traumatized by the notion that the procedure didn't
work, in so far as altering her true feelings, Mary quits
her job and leaves Lacuna and her boyfriend Stan. Meanwhile
Clementine has begun to notice the weirdness in Patrick's
uncanny yet familiar courting tactics and begins to dismiss
the strange man. As for poor Joel, he's hoping that Clementine's
hint to 'meet him in Montauk' will survive the memory erasing
procedure after he awakens.
As daylight breaks, Joel wakes up a new man,
with no memory of his former fling with the multi-color
haired raven Clementine. But for some random reason he impulsively
skips work and takes a bus to Montauk where he meets this
strange girl in an orange sweatshirt that seems to think
she knows him from somewhere.
Having come full circle, will the two lovers
be able to reunite and successfully attempt a second go
at the relationship, or will the fact that Mary releases
everyone's records (including painful tapes of Joel and
Clementine bad-mouthing each other) ruin the chance for
a happy reunion? As Clementine and Joel try to wrap their
heads around what they have done and what they have been
to each other, they learn together that one thing is certain:
you can't pick who you love no more than you can erase it.
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND is a
fantastical journey into the heart and soul. Winning an
Oscar for Best Screenplay, as well as another 35 wins and
45 nominations, Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry bring
to life yet another whimsically eccentric and compelling
film. This time it's a tragic love story that begins at
the end, where things have gone sour and the sweet smell
of love has long since faded. Working its way back in time,
in both the chronology of the plot and Joel's memories,
Kaufman and Gondry portray a relationship in reversal; from
spiteful nemeses to supportive and infatuated lovers. Jim
Carrey delivers a fantastic performance as the high-strung,
overly sensitive and uptight Joel Barish. Kate Winslet is
vivid in her portrayal of possibly one of the most unique
characters of contemporary drama, Clementine Krashinski.
Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, and Elijah Wood strengthen
the cast as does Tom Wilkinson with his performance as the
man weary of his own miracles.
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND is funny,
tragic, palatable, intriguing, compelling, and most importantly,
memorable. This unique script about memory erasing is quite
possibly the most memorable script of all time and rivals
the futuristic sci-fi plots of blockbusters like "Vanilla
Sky," etc. The cinematography and visual effects are
second to none as Gondry and Kaufman bring to life this
unique vision of dreamland-meets faulty memories. This film
is a rare treat for true film lovers and general movie groupies
alike. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND has a little
bit of everything for everyone and its primary concept,
true love, is as tangible as ever in a film that brilliantly
portrays the necessity of the bittersweet-ness of a relationship.
Main Characters:
Jim Carrey plays Joel Barish, Clementine's
former overly-cautious anxiety-stricken boyfriend who, after
Clementine erases him from her memory, decides to erase
Clementine to get past the tragedy of their breakup.
Kate Winslet plays Clementine Krashinski,
Joel's eccentrically captivating and impulsive girlfriend
who, after a final love quarrel, has him erased from her
memory.
Kirsten Dunst plays Mary, Dr. Mierzwiak's
secretary and number one fan, whose incessant crush refuses
to let up even after she undergoes his 'erasing' procedure.
Mark Ruffalo plays Stan, Mary's boyfriend
and head of the technological procedure of the Lacuna operations.
Elijah Wood plays Patrick, Stan's coworker
who falls in love with Clementine while her mind is being
erased and steals Joel's stuff to impersonate his courting
tactics so as to win over his former girlfriend.
Tom Wilkinson plays Dr. Howard Mierzwiak,
the man behind the Lacuna project, who erases the painful
memories of the past via 'minor' brain damage and memory
erasure.
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