Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

An exercise in complicatedness. That’s what it felt like, especially after coming home from work on a very long Friday.

The movie is clearly meant to be viewed a few times before you can piece together the whole scenario. DVD viewers (thanks to the commentary) have the upper hand, and if you think you are going to get into something funny or romantic, it’s going to be a startling revelation.

Boy meets girl. They love each other. The relationship falls apart. Girl gets her memories removed. Boy finds out. Boy has his memories removed. Boy fights memory removal, in vain. Boy meets girl again. They love each other…

The movie won an Oscar for best original screen play, and original it surely was. Unfortunately, it was entirely confusing, with deja vus strewn all over, juxtapositioning of events distant in time, all with the same players doing the same things over and over. The variations and permutations were mindnumbing.

The problem is that it’s quite unclear why you’d want to watch “Eternal Sunshine.” It’s not funny, so it’s not really a comedy. The romantic parts dominate the plot, but it’s not a chick flick. You could call it a drama, but there isn’t much of anything dramatic. It would probably be best termed an intellectual exercise, but I am not sure there is an actual category of the sort.