How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.
—Alexander Pope (not Pope Alexander)

½

My favorite part of a movie is always the beginning—the opening credits, where anything can happen and the realm of possibility stretches ahead like a vast, undiscovered universe. You're like an infant at this point—utterly without knowledge, virginal, a larva without wings. You have no idea yet if you'll like the movie or hate it. You are tabula rasa. The opening credits often provide the first suggestion of the film's themes, showing images or scenes that will prove relevant later on. Some are straightforward cityscapes; some are the equivalent of abstract paintings. You might see the silhouettes of undulating Bond girls, or a hapless Woody Allen ambling down a New York street. And who could forget the visual gourmet dished up in the credits of American Psycho? Even credit sequences that don't feature a garden of ocular delights can effectively set the mood—with music. What all of these approaches have in common, though, is the ability to transport you (the viewer) to a place of eager expectation. And it's that anticipation, that childlike longing to be entertained, that makes movie-watching a soulful and spectacular experience.

With Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I had that feeling the entire way through.

Jim Carrey plays Joel, a shy everyman who is at the far dead-end of a relationship with the fiery, impulsive Clementine (Kate Winslet). After a terrible fight, he goes to see her at the bookstore where she works, only to have her seem not to recognize him. He soon learns that she has had her memories of him erased by the mysterious Lacuna clinic (clever name, guys), and in despair, he arranges to have Clementine erased from his memory as well. We then follow the path of the technicians (Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood), as they navigate through Joel's brain and destroy all his memories of Clementine, one by one, from the recent, vitriolic ones to the lovelier moments early in their relationship. Although sedated, he is awake in his mind, and he experiences each of the memories as they are being erased. Between these scenes, we witness the antics of the two technicians, the Lacuna office assistant (Kirsten Dunst), and the pioneering doctor who created the procedure (Tom Wilkinson).

In the voyage through Joel's brain, there are also some hilarious detours. Still in his grown-up body, he re-enacts several of his childhood memories—a tiny version of Joel stands under his mother's kitchen table, and is bathed in a giant sink. It's priceless. But the absurdity of such moments never detracts from our sympathy for the characters, because by that point they've already got their hooks into us.

Jim Carrey is so understated here it's unbelievable. There is nothing of the manic in him—none at all—so that it is impossible to imagine this is the same person who played Ace Ventura: Pet Detective ("I need to ass you a question"). His portrayal here is all sincerity—beneath his quiet, awkward demeanor, Joel loves Clementine fiercely, and his anguish at losing her is palpable. Kate Winslet, likewise, has never played a character quite like this one—she is by turns volatile, charming, fragile, and lovely. She is decidedly un-glamorous (she wears a hooded sweatshirt for most of the film) and is prone to sudden outbursts of anger. Naturally, she's irresistible. More than anything, you want the two of them to be together.

Although written by Charlie Kaufman, the much-touted similarity to Being John Malkovich is really only a superficial one. True, much of the plot takes place inside someone's head, but the execution in this film is entirely different. There is more emotion in a single frame of Sunshine than in the entirety of Malkovich. Malkovich was all about irony and cleverness. Adaptation was the same way, except that the cleverness was undisciplined, spiraling out of control toward the bizarre, reptilian deus ex machina without ever attaining a point of emotional resonance. Sunshine is much braver than either of those movies. It's even heartbreaking (I cried so much my fellow theater-goers thought I needed medical attention). And yet, there was none of that maudlin tearjerking that goes on in films like The English Patient, where the filmmakers do everything but blow pollen in your eyes to evoke the reaction they want. What you get with Sunshine is genuine engagement, genuine catharsis. You get the pathos of Oedipus, the sorrow of Medea, and it's all within the purview of two ordinary people falling in and out of love.

This is a great film. Although the plot is not presented in a linear fashion, it's not cagey and obsessed with its own cleverness. The film reveals its secrets (and those of the characters) in its own logical fashion, and in its own time. Yes, it's weird, but well worth it. It's kind of like if Terry Gilliam had a baby with Joyce Carol Oates. You'd want to see that baby, wouldn't you? So go see Eternal Sunshine. If you don't like it, you can always have your memory erased.