ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND was not a big box office success in 2004, attendance ranking a demure 80th in the States. It made back a $20,000,000 cost ($34,400,000 domestically, audiences abroad chipping in $39,636,000) but, from the poetry-parsing title onward this one was too offbeat to rock the charts with mass appeal. Sheer ingenuity isn’t always entertaining: atom bombs, viruses, credit card terms. The critics, however (with a few dissenters), spun into one of their ‘This Will Change You’ manic cartwheels of praise, and Oscar recognition was given to the screenplay (a win for cerebralist Charlie Kaufman) and leading lady (Kate Winslet’s 4th nomination). Directed by Michel Gondry. *

“Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?”

Friendly fire incoming! Hit the dirt!

Emotionally shattered after his girlfriend breaks up with him and then acts like he’s literally a complete stranger, pang-sufferer ‘Joel Barrish’ (Jim Carrey, muted and disheveled) finds that his darling ‘Clementine Kruczynski’ (Winslet, prickly and capricious) has undergone ‘Lacuna’ treatment, a procedure that erases memories. Nothing beats defeat (or attempted assassination of spirit) like getting even (I’ll show you love, you ___!) so Joel signs up for some wreckage clearance of his own. But something goes haywire (shit happens) during his ‘erasure’ and he semi-awakes to find himself stuck in a half-life nightmare of recalled choices and chances, a ping pong deck shuffle between fractured past, febrile present and fledgling future. Clementine—or rather Clementine’s, plural—is/are there, too. Sort of.

“Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating.”

It’s the kind of artsy puzzle piece that splits opinions between hugs or shrugs; we’re in the middle with appreciation (for maximum effort), and exasperation (over characters), familiar terra infirma when approaching film ‘experiences’ that are pre-burdened with critic’s rapture that verges on vertigo. Charlie Kaufman’s highly personal writing centers on people who are, in one way or another, wracked; how much you vicariously enjoy (or relate to) their suffering, or feel like putting up with it, is the cross his plots and protagonists ask you to bear. What’s undeniable in this one is that he knows his way around piercing dialogue, particularly the kind with sharp barbs attached; many hold recognizable, residual hurt. Carrey drops his typical wildness (which can bemuse or exhaust) and delivers a heartfelt performance, and Winslet’s incapable of phoning it in. And, who hasn’t, at one time or another (or one too many) wished you’d never said hello to—let alone become enmeshed with—a certain co-conspirator? Is that a kitten or a cobra? Prince or prick? Heartbreak’s part of the test. Couldn’t it just be a written?

There’s a bit of digital tweaking involved during Joel’s psyche-torquing quest, but most of the visual effect moments were clever sleigh-of-hand teamwork from director Gondry, cinematographer Ellen Kuras and editor Valdís Óskarsdóttir.

“Maybe you can find yourself a nice antique rocking chair to die in.”

Undercutting the clever design is that, even though the two principals are well essayed by the stars, it’s difficult to like either perpetually crushed Joel or endlessly ‘on’ Clementine: there’s scant attachment because they exist in a personality vacuum; we don’t see, let alone feel, enough warmth or depth in either to accept their geek-meets-kink attraction. Pity-boys don’t tend to draw sex-charged chatty-Kathy’s and two minutes of Clementine’s blitzkrieg weirdness would have most quasi-grounded guys leaping for a foxhole. The secondary characters are likewise ciphers rather than believable, even when covered by excellent actors: Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood and Tom Wilkinson.

“What a loss to spend that much time with someone, only to find out that she’s a stranger.”

Before the 108 minutes have exhumed, examined and exhausted threads of Joel’s life, Kaufman’s issues will likely reflect some of your own (a) hurts, (b) flaws, and/or (c) patience. Smart, challenging, irritating film has many fans declaiming it a masterpiece: others would rather spend Kaufman-on-the-couch time with his Being John Malkovich, Adaptation or Anamolisa, even I’m Thinking Of Ending Things. Any of them other than the stupor-inducing Synecdoche, New York. **

* The title was lifted from Alexander Pope’s 1717 poem “Eliosa to Abelard”—“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.”

** Misery Loves Company, Inc.—’04’s other How & Why Do We Even Bother? exams included the further (and lesser) fumbles of Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason, the merciless rake-over-the-coals done up close in Closer and the hyper-self-satisfied I Heart Huckabees, quirky enough to drive you into the hills as a hermit.