Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Mar. 22nd, 2004 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saavedra77NYT 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.
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.
