Top 10 List (All-Time Faves): 9. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

9. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

It's time that Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry work together again. It's as simple as that. It our unfortunate world, that will likely not happen as Kaufman seems to have obtained the confidence, and also the skill, to direct his own manic narratives since this film came out. And so, we will have to hold tightly onto their only child, Eternal Sunshine, and take it for all its got. There is no doubt that Eternal Sunshine remains an example of two of cinema's most idiosyncratic voices working in some kind of symbiotic / synergistic relationship to create a  film that is wholly unique and fun, absurdly creative, heart-wrenching and heart-warming and, above all else, memorable.

As with many of Kaufman's scripts, this movie plays with the audience's expectations, subverting what we think is happening or where we think things are heading, based on our collective film-going experiences. The film is a story about a man and a woman meeting and the ensuing highs and lows of the romantic relationship that forms between them. That is what we figure the remainder of the film will be about. And in a way, it is, though where it goes from there becomes much more complicated and also much... trippier, in a sense.

It turns out, that in the world of Eternal Sunshine, a means exists whereby memories of an individual can be procedurally erased. In fact, our protagonists, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet's Joel and Clementine, have undergone this very procedure to have each other erased from their memories. But, as with many a love story, fate plays a dutiful role. Even the loss of memories of one another cannot withhold Joel and Clementine from each other and soon, within the confines of Joel's own psyche, the film becomes a race against the clock to save his last remaining memories of Clementine.

If this all sounds a bit psychedelic or existential or simply too science-fictiony, it is and it isn't. The film is an experience, one that you will be drawn deeply into no matter how much you try to resist. The performances are all engaging and moving (including oddball supporting roles by Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo and Tom Wilkinson).

Eternal Sunshine is a favourite of mine because it is the perfect example of a film trying to do something different... very different in this case. That is a risky venture in a notoriously fickle industry such as cinema. With geniuses like Kaufman and Gondry at the helm though one can be assured that whatever they come up with will be well worth it, and Eternal Sunshine so clearly was.