To be a 10/10 in
my eyes, a film needs three things-- it needs to elicit an emotional response, keep
my attention and interest from start to finish, and I shouldn't be able to find
anything to complain about. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is, to
me, a 10/10 movie. The story is painful, touching, and ultimately sweet. I am,
admittedly, a sucker for unconventional story structure, and it doesn’t get
more unconventional than this (a lot of the film takes place in the realm of
memories/dreams and goes backwards from scene to scene Memento-style for
a bit, among other oddities). It’s one of those films that demands your entire
attention lest one become confused, and though it happened to me a couple of
times everything became clear at the end and the experience was all the richer
for jt. The acting in Eternal Sunshine is superb—it’s one of those
“serious Jim Carrey movies” that shows off the comedian’s dramatic chops, and
the fact that Kate Winslet singles her performance in this film out as her
favorite shows that she has impeccable taste. As for complaints, well, I
initially thought that the small storyline of Elijah Woods's characters was
unneeded, but when I really thought about it I saw that it enhanced the main
narrative in a subtle way and wasn’t superfluous after all. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is, in my eyes, one of those few movies that reaches
perfection even as the characters constantly fail at it. Highly recommended.
