Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
With love sorta at first sight, Joel and Clementine (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet) seemed like a match made in heaven. But hey, times change. And with it, the inevitable break-up occurs. And how one person deals with it will be different from the next. Clementine took the extraordinary step of having all memories of Joel erased. By accident, Joel finds out about this and wants to undergo the same procedure. So under the guidance of Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) and his assistants (Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, and Kirsten Dunst), Joel starts the procedure. But in his dream state, he sees the bad memories fade away along with the good and soon realizes that they were too good to give up.

Writer Charlie Kaufman is such an imaginative guy to begin with, the idea itself should be up for awards. But it's amazing to see that the execution involved in seeing his creation come to life matches it. The tangled, and sometimes confusing, web that Kaufman and director Michael Gondry weave is held together by the emotional impact given by the main characters and by the innovative way Joel outwits the doctors to keep Clementine in his mind. You might not need Carrey and Winslet in the main roles, but it makes the movie that much better. However, only briefly do the ethical arguments of such a procedure are argued. Is it right to toy with somebody's head? That's for another, probably boring, movie to discuss. Instead, we get to enjoy a delightful romantic comedy that's probably the weirdest romantic comedy you'll ever see. 3.5 stars