It's always satisfying to see a writer, director or actor who has always been on the cusp of greatness actually achieve what has been hinted at for an entire career. Despite Charlie Kaufman's heaps of praise, Oscar nominations and cachet with the tragically hip, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the screenwriter's first truly great movie. It's a doozy of a film, too: not only Kaufman's best, but also the best of the year so far, and a good candidate for inclusion on year-end top-10 lists.
Not all the credit can go to Kaufman, certainly. As with any great movie, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and Kaufman's script is supported by superb direction from Michel Gondry and outstanding performances from Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst and Mark Ruffalo. Only Elijah Wood seems a little off, but maybe that's just because it's hard to shake the stink of hobbit from him. Eternal Sunshine is one of those films where balance is integral to its success. If Kaufman's script had been filmed by his other frequent collaborator, Spike Jonze, or with different actors, it very well might not have turned out so moving, lyrical and transcendent.
The concept isn't much less gimmicky than Kaufman's past work (Confessions of A Dangerous Mind, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Human Nature), and the reliance on gimmickry is what has always held him back. The idea seems ripped from a Philip K. Dick story, and indeed bears striking resemblance to Dick-based films like Total Recall and Paycheck. Carrey's downtrodden Everyman, Joel Barish, takes himself to the Lacuna company, where Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Wilkinson) offers a revolutionary procedure that erases selected memories from people's brains. Joel is there thanks to his breakup with Clementine Kruczynski (Winslet), who had the procedure on a whim and now doesn't even recognize him when he shows up to give her a gift and apologize for their final, relationship-ending fight.
Mierzwiak's assistants (Ruffalo, Wood and Dunst) show up at Joel's apartment while he's asleep, set to erase his memories of Clementine so he can wake up the next day as a new man. But something funny happens during the memory-bank withdrawal. Joel realizes he doesn't want to let go of his memories of Clementine, not the joyous ones and not the painful ones, either. He engages in a desperate and heart-wrenching attempt to hold onto her as she disappears before his mind's eye. At the same time, Mierzwiak and his assistants play out their own psychosexual drama, and you realize just how twisted and essentially inhuman the memory erasure process is, even as it offers the illusion of a life free from pain.
Even though you know, thanks to the subdued and strangely suspenseful opening sequence, that Joel won't be able to stop his memory loss, his fight is so emotionally powerful that you can't help but hope against hope things will turn out well. Kaufman manages to make the clearly doomed love of polar opposites Joel and Clementine—he's a depressed introvert, she's a manic extrovert—into something you not only feel but want to fight for yourself. You know there will be more pain and heartache for the couple in the future, and they know it, too, but it doesn't matter, because there can't be any highs without the lows. Even as obvious as that seems on the printed page, it unfolds brilliantly through the reverse vision we get of Joel and Clementine's relationship, starting with its aftermath and ending with a meeting that's also a final parting, as Joel says goodbye to Clementine in his first memory of her.
Kaufman's past films have been more about their conceits, brilliant though they may have been, than their characters or emotions, but with Eternal Sunshine, he's finally firing on all cylinders. Joel is similar to the Kaufman analogues played by John Cusack and Nicolas Cage in Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, respectively, but he's also more than that; he's a real person, not simply a bundle of neuroses. Carrey gives the best performance of his career, second only to The Truman Show, and does the seemingly unthinkable, playing subtle and under-the-surface, never going over the top and never overplaying Joel's emotions. At the same time, those emotions are always heartbreakingly clear. If you can't find a little bit of yourself in Joel, you're probably not human.
Winslet, saddled with a character who seems a bit of a bitch at first, makes Clementine just as human and just as damaged as Joel, albeit in a louder, slightly more obnoxious way. Most importantly, Carrey and Winslet sell these two people as genuinely, truly, tragically in love, so you feel the memory loss just as painfully as they do. With less screen time, Dunst, Ruffalo and Wilkinson still bring out complexities in their characters, and if Wood comes off as a little stiff, it's only be because he's got the flattest part, an undeniable ass who uses Joel's memories to try and get into Clementine's pants.
Gondry, a music-video director whose last picture, the Kaufman-scripted Human Nature, had lots of bluster but not much emotion, matches Kaufman note for note here, turning Joel's mind into a kaleidoscopic realm of terror and wonder. His staging of the couple's first/last meeting is the perfect illustration of what the characters are going through. And small visual touches throughout always serve to augment Kaufman's story and characters.
With an ending simultaneously tragic and hopeful, Eternal Sunshine never betrays its ambitions and never lets you down, offering a complex message about love and human relations that's as universal as it is refreshing. It's worth saying again: This is a truly great film. For once, Kaufman lives up to all his hype, and it's a beautiful sight to behold.