Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Review

Gondry does almost all of the disintegration practically, with forced perspective, in-camera lighting changes, doubles walking out of frame and sets struck while the actors keep playing the scene. Because nothing is rendered, the memory collapse feels organic rather than digital, and a bookshop losing its spines or a face going blank in a kitchen carries more unease than an effects sequence would. Ellen Kuras shoots it handheld and grainy, which keeps the fantasy tethered to something that looks like a home movie.

Kaufman's screenplay is his warmest, running the relationship backwards through Joel's head so the audience meets the resentment before the tenderness and has to revise everything it assumed. Jim Carrey plays Joel with almost nothing on the surface, the boldest casting decision of the decade, and Kate Winslet makes Clementine specific enough to defeat the archetype she is often blamed for inventing. The technicians subplot is the weak strand, a piece of farce running alongside the grief and interrupting the better film. The ending, agreeing to fail again knowingly, is remarkably unsentimental.