“Sunshine” near spotless

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Focus Features presents a Michael Gondry film, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Written by Charlie Kaufman, Pierre Bismuth and Gondry. 108 minutes. Rated R for language and some drug and sexual content.

4.5 stars

Boy, your lovin’ is all I think about. I just can’t get you out of my head.

Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) is like the rest of us tortured lot, who partake in a relationship that promises to be “the one,” but is stymied by insecurity, jealousy, or any number of personal peccadilloes.

Her impulsiveness is consuming, reflected mainly in her inability to pick a standard hair color. In this “sometime in the near future setting” of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” she’s given an option too tantalizing for her sudden whims. She can erase her multiple-year relationship with Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) in a procedure that, as the doctor would say, is “on par with a heavy night of drinking.”

Charlie Kaufman’s newest script continues to showcase his profound ability to think in fanciful ways about our otherwise mundane problems. His “Being John Malkovich” was one of the most imaginative American screenplays ever played out. Kaufman is once again consumed with the intricacies of the human mind in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

The question he poses is almost as delightful in execution as Michael Gondry’s direction. What if we could erase our most meaningful relationships completely, so as not to be burdened with the inevitable heartache, anger and depression?

The gut reaction is to dismiss this choice as pure bunkum. Isn’t it those relationships where we learn the most about ourselves and about our ability to relate to others? But Kaufman has placed his story in a much more cloudy context; just days after the relationship terminated, Joel is not thinking logically. He’s thinking as emotionally and as impulsively as his darlin’ Clementine.

The majority of the story takes place in Joel’s mind, as Lacuna’s brain surgeons are zapping his noggin and erasing Clem. Our long term memory tends to exaggerate, amend, or otherwise distort events, and the film’s creators have a good time playing with cinematic convention in their mis-en-scene and editing when wildly jumping around the timeline of Joel’s existence.

Our biggest treats are when Carrey is allowed to extend himself beyond the pedestrian introvert he’s playing. After Joel decides mid-procedure - in a state of semi-consciousness, one would imagine - that he wants to keep Clementine in his mind, he attempts to subvert the procedure by hiding her in the deep recesses of his shameful teenage existence and his mortifying childhood. While it’s not the usual physical comedy that we expected from the less mature Carrey of years past, it’s often funnier.

Much like 2002’s “Punch-Drunk Love,” this movie is outstanding about showing the little moments that make two seemingly disparate characters fall in love with each other. In “Eternal Sunshine,” one character has rejected society’s conventions, while the other finds themselves already rejected by the greater world. The extrovert tries to mold the introvert, while the introvert tries madly to tame the extrovert. The relationship ultimately ends badly, like most relationships, because it is subject to being overthought and dissected into tiny pieces. At the point of break-up, both have forgotten the cumulative feeling of love and only remember the resentment of the here-and-now present.

The movie’s secondary characters provide needed respites from the inner workings of Joel’s mind. They are consumed by their own insecurities and could probably use the nostrum they’re dishing out. Patrick (Elijah Wood) is an insignificant lab assistant whose own shyness around the women folk has reduced him to a slimy, self-serving predator. After falling in love with Clementine during the previous week’s washing, Patrick uses Joel’s love letters and journal entries to seduce his new love interest. Did he forget this all ended badly for the two of them?

Stan (Mark Ruffalo) and Mary (Kirsten Dunst) are engaged in a romance only found in close working spaces. With similar ages and fascination with the unordinary, they bond together. But Stan has to complacently stand aside when Mary riffs about her true inspiration: their boss, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). Mierzwiak is a sad sack, whose invention serves to confuse, frustrate and beguile his patients more than it helps them lead normal lives.

And therein lies the problem. The movie is not a zany comedy of revenge, as one would expect, but a predominately sad affair. Kaufman has never been one to go for the pat happy ending and the disgruntled comments of departing theatergoers has convinced me this movie isn’t for everyone. Like “Punch-Drunk Love,” it asks us to think, to connect, to react.

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is like finding a pot of gold in a cave of pyrite. It’s March release is much like the movie itself; it flips what we think we know on its ear. Mired in the studio’s throw-away month, it shines brighter than most films we’re bound to see this year.

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” has given us a reason to go to the movies again.