{"id":3771,"date":"2009-02-13T00:33:12","date_gmt":"2009-02-13T08:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=3771"},"modified":"2009-02-15T16:23:17","modified_gmt":"2009-02-16T00:23:17","slug":"eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind-michel-gondry-2004-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=3771","title":{"rendered":"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kevin Tran<\/a>. Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cRandom thoughts for Valentine’s day, 2004. Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.\u201d This is the opening line of acclaimed writer Charlie Kaufman\u2019s film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind<\/em> <\/a> . Directed by visionary Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine is a romantic comedy you have never seen before. A perfect film for whether you\u2019re alone or with someone this Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

Joel (Jim Carey) is stunned to discover that his girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has had their tumultuous relationship erased from her mind. Out of desperation, he contacts the inventor of the process, Dr. Howard Meirzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), to get the same treatment. But as his memories of Clementine begin to fade, Joel suddenly realizes how much he still loves her.<\/p>\n

Jim Carey is surprisingly genuine throughout the entire film, as a regular guy who is in love, never once breaking character and turning into a cartoon character he too often plays. Instead, it is Kate Winslet who has the unique, zany role as a woman who frequently dyes her hair and makes potato puppets. Winslet plays her role so naturally that we buy her strange, eccentric oddities. The film also has a great supporting cast that makes up the sub-plot and the Lacuna Corp. (the company that handles the memory erasing), led by Tom Wilkinson as the head doctor, Kirsten Dunst who plays the clueless secretary, and Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood as two dorky employees.<\/p>\n

As in Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, Kaufman has a knack for putting the audience inside a character\u2019s head. And with a technical wizard like Gondry behind the camera, the film takes a unique look at how a relationship deteriorates and how it is mended. Kaufman\u2019s writing is at his peak; the film won an Academy Award for best original story, with a script that is incredibly clever, funny and inventive. Gondry has the difficult task of weaving together Joel\u2019s random memories, while at the same time Joel is in his own head, trying to stop the treatment. But Gondry’s style is so original and innovative that each jump and shift in time is interesting and fun.<\/p>\n

Gondry and Kaufman reveal the ugly side of relationships and the tragedy of loneliness, but they also illustrate human beings’ need for love. And when that love is over, in times of heartache, we only remember the bad, spiteful memories instead of the good ones–the ones that make us love again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kevin Tran. Viewed on DVD. \u201cRandom thoughts for Valentine’s day, 2004. Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.\u201d This is the opening line of acclaimed writer Charlie Kaufman\u2019s film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . Directed by visionary Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}