Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

[saavedra77]

NYT Reviewer Elvis Mitchell calls "Eternal Sunshine" an "angular and intelligent romantic comedy," whose "mournful, paranoid quality" reminds him of Philip K. Dick novels & the R.E.M. song "South Central Rain," among other things.

The story does use a vaguely Dickian premise about the technological manipulation of memory and identity. But "Sunshine's" paranoia is less about that creepy old Dickian determinism than about the fragility of relationships.

This is a Charlie Kaufman script, with some of the odd humor of "Being John Malkovich" or "Adaptation," and a similarly nerdy protagonist. But this movie's less ironic than his earlier scripts, more empathetic, closer to the characters.

Those characters also reminded me a lot of people I know. Kaufman, through Carrey and Winslet, seemed to be channelling some of our generation's key nervous tics ....

Insightful ending, too.

Comments

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

I must admit I skimmed this post- I have massive spoiler fear as you know :) But I wanted to say that indeed it's good to hear you liked it. I really liked Carrey in "the Truman Show" so I was pretty sure he could pull off a serious role very well. It makes me also want to go back and see the biographical one he did about Andy Kaufman now that I know more about Kaufman's life and it would be more interesting to me. I didn't bother at the time because I didn't trust Carrey after something awful he did... But I also used to HATE HATE HATE Keanu Reeves, and he's managed to make good on a few really.... _unpleasant_ celluloid violations he's committed :)