Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Year: 2004 Rating: R Overall Evaluation: 6.0 Significance Suppositions Story Style 7.0 / 10 8.0 / 10 7.0 / 10 5.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

Rated R for language, some drug and sexual content. No nudity except a clothes changing shot of a woman (from behind) and a man after some dancing around in their underwear. Kudos for the non-gratuitous nudity but more cussing than necessary. Also the light treatment of drugs and adultery made it worse.

Story

This is a romantic . . . er . . . comedy? drama? about a couple who meet, fall in love, fall apart, and request a procedure to erase one another from their memories. Anything else I say will be a spoiler so . . .

[SPOILER WARNING!]

The movie is shot out of time order - even the credits come on about 20 minutes into the movie which is a good indication of chronology. We are being shown first the guy's after-procedure experiences and then as a sort of flashback series the rest of the story as we follow him through his procedure. He realizes in the middle of it that he does not want to forget the girl and he fights to keep her memory alive while it is slowly erased.

Suppositions

The film requires belief in an advanced technology that can discretely erase stored memories from one's brain. This presupposes some mind/brain issues that I won't go into here but for the most part it can be worked around to not be terribly far off. Further, the fact that the mind is fighting what is being done to the brain is a good indication that they are not one and the same. Otherwise it's a fairly normal movie. I also liked that they exposed the Hollywood "love at first sight" fairy tale for what it usually turns out to be in real life - temporary infatuation.

Significance

The message the movie sends is that love is worth fighting for even if it might eventually fail, and that memories (even painful ones) are worth keeping. No huge morality tale, this one - but good nonetheless.