Ticket Stubs #51: Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind

Article by Sean Wilkinson,
a.k.a. The Ticketmaster

Welcome back to Throwback Thursday, Ticketholders!
Back in my Countdown to TixMas special last year, I made reference to the Adam Sandler movie, Click, being a Happy Madison knockoff of Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey. I also recently did a sort-of-Valentine's-themed issue of Ticket Stubs on the Adam Sandler-led comedy, Spanglish (complete with a modern contrarian satire review just for "fun"). So now, we come to the Jim Carrey-led drama, Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind, which was paired with Envy (another Countdown to TixMas inclusion) back in SWAT Ticket #20: Eternal Envy Of the Spotless Mind (FROM October 15, 2004). This is going to be uncouth and unedited, so get ready for juvenile word choices, plot spoilers, and everything else that I would have left out of a Greatest Hits version (so much of it that I never did a Greatest Hits version).

Thanks to another unoriginal issue title, now you don't have to open the damn thing to see what I'm reviewing this week, which sucks a monkey for the two or three of you who read my reviews at all. On with the show......

Eternal Sunshine Of the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome From Typing the Title of this Movie is a far cry from Envy, and crying is apparently what the filmmakers behind ESotSM hope you will do. Jim Carrey (abandoning the outlandish Bruce Almighty persona for one more akin to his role in The Majestic, but less funny) is a self-made shyguy with an unpursued talent for creating art. Kate Winslet is the multi-haircolored free spirit who sweeps him off his feet at a beach party. However, each other's quirks get annoying after the initial sex and romance. So Winslet endeavors to completely erase Carrey--and every memory (good or bad) surrounding him--from her mind.
Carrey finds out and endeavors to erase her from his mind. During the weird graphical deterioration that passes for memory erasure, he realizes how much he truly loves the woman who has lost him and whom he is losing piece by piece, and takes them on a wild goose chase through his greatest childhood embarrassments (allowing true Carrey comedy to shine through for a while). Meanwhile, the real Winslet is being romanced by one of the doctors (Elijah Wood) who perform the erasing procedure. The other doctor (Mark Ruffalo) is a pothead, and decides to do a little weed with the nurse in training (Kirsten Dunst, back in blonde), then dance half-naked and stoned with her on the bed where Carrey is unconscious and being erased. Slightly tweaked theories about dreaming and memories are thrown in to make things "weird" (like Carrey being able to hear the commotion and conversation that's going on while he's unconscious, deja vu, accessing memories as if by mental catalogue or time machine, etc.), and the loophole that allows two people who have erased each other from memory to meet again is distributed subtly throughout for much the same reason. Aside from being shot in the fuzzy and drastically contrasted quality of a bad indie film (and the long title, the long intro, the un-Carrey-ness of Carrey), ESotSM is a must see.
A- (Second Most Wanted)

Quote of the Week: "I met a man/Who had a face/That looked a lot like me./
I saw him in the mirror/And I fought him in the street./
Then when he turned away,/I shot him in the head./
Soon I came to realize/I had killed myself." -Audioslave, from "Exploder"

The last line of that verse rings differently, given the manner of passing of Soundgarden, Temple Of the Dog, and Audioslave frontman, Chris Cornell, almost as much as the title and lyrics of Soundgarden's "Pretty Noose." Further proof that you don't know what you have, or what will lead to you losing it, until it's gone?

That goes for life as well as love, so cherish both and treat them with respect.

I should have TBT 2023 links to my old review of City Island posted on Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook shortly, if I didn't do that first. And because City Island features a young Ezra Miller wearing a red-and-gold hoodie and playing a teenage boy with a feeder fetish, Stay Tuned for a collection of my old DC reviews and opinion pieces about a few movies and shows starring celebrities whose reputations have aged like bleu cheese in a swamp.

Ticketmaster,

Out.