John Nash (Russell Crowe, Beautiful Mind, A, 2001)
|
John Nash (Russell Crowe, Beautiful Mind, A, 2001) |
|
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, screenwriter-of-the-moment Charlie Kaufman's fourth film, tries really hard to be something great, but doesn't have what it takes to get there. An interesting and unique concept, ESOTSM features Jim Carrey (The Truman Show) and Kate Winslet (Titanic) as a couple who have the memories of their unhappy relationship erased. Most of the film centers on these memories as they fade from existence and both Joel (Carrey) and Clementine(Winslet) discover that they truly did love each other despite some turbulent moments. ESOTSM wants to be a film about regret, fate, and the need for human interaction and intimacy and it almost succeeds. The biggest problem is that, despite a story that offers so many opportunities to explore the emotions behind the choices we make, the film sticks too closely to the act of the memories being erased instead of looking deeper into the relationship between Joel and Clementine. In the end, the film feel hollow and incomplete; as if there was a bigger story that wanted to be told that was never allowed to escape to the surface. With films like Adaptation and Being John Malkovich, Kaufman has proven he can create fully realized characters that, despite their flaws, are wholly likable and sympathetic. Unfortunately this is not the case with ESOTSM whose Joel and Clementine are polar opposites of one another (she's undeniably manic; he's brooding and depressed) and never anything more. Carrey and Winslet are respectable enough in their performances, but the characters aren't much more than one-dimensional caricatures. This, along with the fact that I felt very little chemistry between Carrey and Winslet, makes it very difficult to care whether Joel and Clementine realize their fate and finally end up together or get their wish to be rid of each other forever. Directed by Michael Gondry (who also helmed the Kaufman-bomb Human Nature), ESOTSM is a dark film, both in tone and overall look and feel. Even though it’s supposed to be a story about love, there's nothing warm about the ESOTSM. It feels almost like an exercise in filmmaking—the technical aspects are certainly there, but there's no real passion or exploration into the script beyond what's written on the page. I have to wonder if the result would've been different had ESOTSM been helmed by Adaptation and Being John Malkovich auteur Spike Jonze, who seems to have an uncanny talent for translating Kaufman's often disjointed thoughts into something magical. ESOTSM is a film whose full potential is never realized. While it offers a unique storyline, it never expands beyond the initial idea and plods along with camera tricks and a few plot twists that are interesting enough at first, but, in the end, aren't enough to make ESOTSM anything worth remembering. |
|
© 2002 - 2007, MovieJustice.com Powered by: ezDatabase 2.1.1; © 2003 - 2010 IndexCOR LLC |
