Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The previews suggested a light-hearted, whimsical romantic comedy, but since Charlie Kaufman wrote it, we should have known better. It is actually a fairly dark and despairing movie about the transience of love and the challenge of truly knowing another person. Kaufman mixes these themes with some memory erasing science fiction stuff and the result is part "Total Recall" and part "Being John Malkovich." The new movie, however, is neither as thrilling as the former nor as funny and original as the latter. It has some striking moments, but the laughs are few and far between. The cast (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as the lovers, with Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood and Tom Wilkinson in support) does a fine job with material that is rather difficult. Kaufman and director Michel Gondry seem to have made a deliberate effort to keep the movie from being too easily enjoyed. The complex, almost avant-garde narrative structure and the gloomy visual tone have the effect of distancing us from both the story and the characters. That's too bad, really, because the exuberant imaginations of the filmmakers are an all too uncommon virtue in today's Hollywood. Or at least movies made with exuberant imagination are.