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The Main Characters
--Joel Barish (Jim Carey) is a guy who doesn’t have anything going on in his life at all. He recently split with his long-time girlfriend, Naomi, and just works. Of course, this changes when he meets Clementine and has quite the romance.
--Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) is a free soul who colors her hair odd colors very often. She meets Joel and the two start a colorful romance, until she erases him from her memory.
--Dr. Henry Mierzwiack (Tom Wilkinson) is the founder of Lacuna Inc., a place where you can erase memories. Both Clementine and Joel will meet this man and get their memories erased of each other.
--Stan (Mark Ruffalo) is one of the men who performs the memory erasing procedure while the patient is asleep in their home.
--Mary (Kirsten Dunst) is Rob’s girlfriend and also the secretary at Lacuna.
--Patrick (Elijah Wood) is Rob’s assistant in the memory erasing procedure.
The Setting
Around Valentine’s Day in New York, specifically Montauk and Rockville Centre.
The Plot
Joel Barish and Clementine Kruzynski are seeing each other. They are not your typical couple. Joel is a plain old guy who goes to work every day while Clementine is a freewheeling go with the flow type of gal. She is what many would call eccentric and likes to color her hair all sorts of odd colors, like blue. They met while Joel was at a beach party in Montauk and things progressed from there. Of course, there are hardships as there are in any relationship. Clementine likes to stay out late while Joel stays in and after one such argument Clementine leaves Joel. She goes to Lacuna to get her memories of Joel erased. When Joel shows up to see her at her Barnes and Noble job, she has no idea whom he is, since she erased him. Joel doesn’t know what to make of this and unwittingly finds a note sent to his friend saying Clementine erased him from her memory. Joel goes to Lacuna raging mad at this, and since he wasn’t ever supposed to see the letter, the founder of Lacuna, Dr. Mierzwiack, gives him some preferential treatment and offers to erase Joel’s memory of Clementine. Joel accepts and when he goes to bed that night, Rob and Patrick, the memory erasers, come to his house to erase Clementine from his head. As they are erasing Joel, in his sleep, realizes that this is a mistake and tries everything to hide Clementine in his memory so that he can remember her.
Movie Review
When I first saw this movie, I had no idea if I liked it or not. After thinking on it for a few days, ruminating if you will, I realized this was one of the finest movies and most different movies I had ever seen. Watching it again for a second time makes me realize how great it is and why I enjoyed it so much in the first place. Everything falls into place the second time around (which part takes place where and when and how it fits together). My initial viewing left me a little confused, but man, watching it now made me love it even more. The movie is not shown in sequence, it starts near the end and then goes some 20 minutes before we pick up the story from the middle. It’s shot really well, and you get the feeling of confusion that Joel and Clementine must be going through during the whole process too. The writing is absolutely fantastic and the way it’s presented is even better.
Of course, great writing and shooting a movie doesn’t make, it also relies on the cast. We have Jim Carrey in one of his best roles ever, and he pulls off the melancholy and somewhat apathetic Joel to a T and shows he can actually act and not play the doofy character all the time. The other main player is Kate Winslet who does an astounding job of making Clementine seem like the free-spirited vindictive bitch she claims to be. The supporting cast is nothing short of perfect (Elijah Wood, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo and Tom Wilkinsin) and really rounds out the film well. The story focuses mainly on Joel and Clem, and Jim and Kate carry this somewhat unconventional “comedy” on their backs and straight into greatness. A film that must be seen. ****.
DVD Features
A) Extras
1) A Look Inside Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
This is an 11 and a half minute look inside Eternal Sunshine. Basically, it’s the actors describing what the movie is about and their experiences filming it.
2) A Conversation with Jim Carrey and director Michel Gondry
This is 15 and a half minutes long and shows Kate and Jim rehearsing together and Jim and Michael talking with each other sitting in desks. Jim tells some great stories (like driving the bed) and overall it’s a splendid waste of 15 minutes listening to Jim and Michel talk about the movie and seeing the Kate/Jim rehearsals and the forced perspective trick with the table.
3) Feature Commentary
Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman do the commentary. Michel does the bulk of the talking; mentioning the filming of scenes and Charlie does ask Michel a bunch of questions on why he did what which was pretty cool to hear. The two men asked each other very good questions showing a level of respect for each other and seeming interested in what they had to say. It was a very pleasant commentary to listen to.
4) Deleted Scenes
There are 7 minutes of deleted scenes. One is of Joel coming home and calling Naomi (which I seem to remember being in the movie when I saw it?) after he dropped off Clementine at home. The second is more of Joel and the doctor, mostly the doc recording dialogue. The third is of Clem and Joel coming out of a Broadway play, though it seems like it was part of the memory sequence. The final deleted scene is of Clem and Joel making out, and Clem fades away.
5) Polyphonic Spree “Light and Day” Music Video
This is the 3 minute video to their song. It’s a catchy tune, and the video is quite well done. It is almost 100% scenes from the movies, but the singers mouth is superimposed over the actors making it look like they are singing the song, and when there are clips without someone talking, an inanimate object (like a house or car) is miming the words.
6) Lacuna Commercial
This is a 37 second “commercial” for Lacuna and it’s pretty funny. It is like those cheesy doctors’ ads they show on TV.
B) Audio/Video
The movie is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and the video is in widescreen 1.33:1 ratio. The audio fits the film well, but there’s really no use for the surrounds but it’s nice that it’s there. The video is really where the movie shines. It fluctuates a great deal between light and dark and the DVD has no problems with the transitions. A great DVD transfer.
Audio: 8.5
Video: 9.5
C) Liner Notes
As the common trend in DVD’s now, it has those annoying protection devices you have to unsnap before opening the DVD, then no liner notes inside relevant to the film (just some Focus DVDs available now or coming soon).
D) Easter Eggs
None
Overall Review
For what was really just an independent film, this DVD really delivers. Besides getting a four-star movie and in my opinion the best movie released so far this year, you get some pretty good extras. The conversation with Michel and Jim was very interesting, and perhaps some of the funniest things are done in that extra than anywhere else on the DVD, there is the standard music video and making of, some cool deleted scenes and the cheesy Lacuna commercial. Oddly enough, there is no trailer as part of the extras, but that’s really the only noticeable thing. I waited anxiously for this to come out on DVD just because the movie was so great, and I recommend this DVD to anyone.
Overall Rating
10.0
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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