Arts & Entertainment
 

Kaufman's new film not to be forgotten

by Ray Hafner
The Daily Cougar

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." While Tennyson's embrace of all consuming despair following the loss of love may have worked a hundred years ago, today's "Get over it" culture is tough and fast, with no room for the months of empty hearts and empty Kleenex boxes.

Enter Lacuna, the imaginary memory erasing company featured in Jim Carrey's dazzling new romance, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. 

Bad break up got you down? Just stop by and Lacuna's crack team of technicians (Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood) will wipe out all traces of the person who cheated.

But what does it mean to erase a person? And what if that love was real? Is the pleasure worth the pain? And if there's no pain is it true pleasure?

Questions fill Eternal Sunshine to its brim. This is a movie that deeply gets relationships. It understands how the cute way she rubs her feet together in bed can months later annoy the crap out of you when you just want to get to sleep; or how his jokes can go from funny to annoying and immature.

Written by Charlie Kaufman, the same idiosyncratic genius behind Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, and starring Carrey, a master of quirkiness, this movie takes a strange concept and knocks it out of the park. 

Directed by music video director Michael Gondry, this film is so well made and so stunningly insightful that it's a wonder it didn't come out in December when it could have been in better Oscar contention. As it is, voters will have to remember this one in 2005.

The film's structure makes a plot synopsis nearly impossible to write. Kate Winslet plays Carrey's love interest Clementine. The two are inexplicably drawn to each other while walking the beach on Montauk Point. 

Fast forward to the memory-erasing and the couple's relationship plays out backwards, going from bad to good while Lacuna's goofy technicians, joined by Kirsten Dunst, party over a sleeping Carrey.

Kaufman is the only person who thinks this is crazy. And he's the rare genius who manages to write profitable hits. This one is likely headed that way, as it's bound to be played over and over by lovesick pups searching for meaning while their relationship crumbles.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Rated: R

Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet

Universal Films

The verdict: Don't erase this one.

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