I found this movie when I was 16 and rewatched it at least once per year for about 10 years and found that it hit me differently each time. I think this movie does a great job of reflecting the viewer’s perspective on love and relationships back at them no matter what their stance is in that moment. My first time watching, I was going over to a girl’s house for the first time at 16 and the clerk at blockbuster recommended it “because Jim Carrey is hilarious.” We ignored the movie for most of the night and by the end of the movie I had my first girlfriend. I had a couple of days left on the rental so I rewatched it alone and it amplified all of the teenage emotions I was feeling then. Love is hopeful, we all make mistakes but love wins in the end! We broke up a year later. It was a messy and emotional breakup, as many first breakups are. Imagine Joel and Clementine as less erudite teenagers. I rewatched the movie soon after and it felt like picking at sore wounds. All of the intense emotions, and the hopelessness. Would I erase her? Would she erase me? Are we meant to start over, or are we doomed if we do? (Melodramatic for teenagers, but that’s life). Rewatching later in life, in a more stable and mature relationship those feelings are still there but they are padded with life experience. Love sucks sometimes. And it absolutely soars other times. Forgetting the tough times doesn’t make life easier, just emptier.
This film ranks among my top three favorites of all time. Even now, it stands out as one of the most innovative narratives ever brought to the screen, for me. Jim Carrey delivers a revelatory performance, honestly, I just adore him in this. While Kate Winslet is such a captivating and fun character. The direction and production is leaps and bounds ahead of its time, and just so creatively done (like you mentioned, the disappearing set etc.) Man...I just love this movie.
I had read the script before the movie came out. I'm not the best reader and there's a lot I can't remember about it, but in the script, they DID get the procedure recurrently. I'm guessing they made the movie more ambiguous because of they didn't want to bum out the audience. That's not always a good thing to do, but I think it worked in Eternal Sunshine's favor, here. As mentioned, the scene at the end hints at it being done over and over.
I REALLY like your idea of going back and rewatching some of the films that were important to yourselves. Charlie Kaufman, is certainly one of the great directors having a style unique to himself; when you see a Kaufman film you know it’s a Kaufman film because no one else would tell it like that. Off the top of my head the only other directors I can think of like that are Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson. As always I loved hearing your thoughts.
@@manfredvaegler9661 I agree that his stamp as a *screenwriter* is all over it, but you didn’t refer to him as a “screenwriter” or even as a “filmmaker” (which one uses interchangeably with “director,” but serves as an umbrella designation for writers and producers, too). You referred to him as a “director” in relation to this specific film. 🤷♂️
Dear MH: I’m so impressed by your review of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, a movie that I’ve loved for years. Thank you for the wonderful insights! What an amazing movie. Request?: Aliens/ Inception/ A Dirty Shame. 🤜🏽🤛🏼
I started to become a film buff when I was 12/13 and wanted to watch anything on IMBb’s Top 250 that I could find. It was a bit too much for my pubescent developing brain but it lingered in my head and became my comfort film at 14 when I started to come to terms with being gay and while it was a hard time for me personally it was almost like a gateway for me to see the world through an adult lens instead of less simplified childhood one. That sounds dumb but I first declared it as my favourite movie of all time back then and I still stand by it now at 27, after years of rewatches and reassessments of its themes. I can also see so much influence in other films in how the movie is shot, edited and written and the legacy it has now. I can’t believe it’s already 20 years old.
I totally understand. The film oddly aligns with my coming out story as well, though I’m not sure I’ll ever figure out how. Perhaps in the way people both deeply understand and frequently misunderstand one another, the reality and security of those revelations helped me along.
Crazy that you should be rewatching and reviewing this right now, as I’ve had a hankering to rewatch it, too, so tonight I watched it for the second time ever - first time in almost 20 years. And I liked it less than I did back then. It’s still a great film in many, many ways, but here’s the Letterboxd review I wrote tonight: “In order for loss to be painful, one has to have a rich understanding of what once was. Joel does, but the filmmakers give us, the viewers, only the most cursory of his memories with Clementine - and even then the memories are usually in the midst of erasure. As a result, the film is intellectually and conceptually interesting, but it’s never as emotionally moving as it might have been had it been twice as long and given us the romance before their decision to scrub it out of their hearts. We need to have lived it with them for the absence of it to echo in us.”
I found this movie when I was 16 and rewatched it at least once per year for about 10 years and found that it hit me differently each time. I think this movie does a great job of reflecting the viewer’s perspective on love and relationships back at them no matter what their stance is in that moment.
My first time watching, I was going over to a girl’s house for the first time at 16 and the clerk at blockbuster recommended it “because Jim Carrey is hilarious.”
We ignored the movie for most of the night and by the end of the movie I had my first girlfriend. I had a couple of days left on the rental so I rewatched it alone and it amplified all of the teenage emotions I was feeling then. Love is hopeful, we all make mistakes but love wins in the end!
We broke up a year later. It was a messy and emotional breakup, as many first breakups are. Imagine Joel and Clementine as less erudite teenagers. I rewatched the movie soon after and it felt like picking at sore wounds. All of the intense emotions, and the hopelessness. Would I erase her? Would she erase me? Are we meant to start over, or are we doomed if we do? (Melodramatic for teenagers, but that’s life).
Rewatching later in life, in a more stable and mature relationship those feelings are still there but they are padded with life experience. Love sucks sometimes. And it absolutely soars other times. Forgetting the tough times doesn’t make life easier, just emptier.
This film ranks among my top three favorites of all time. Even now, it stands out as one of the most innovative narratives ever brought to the screen, for me. Jim Carrey delivers a revelatory performance, honestly, I just adore him in this. While Kate Winslet is such a captivating and fun character. The direction and production is leaps and bounds ahead of its time, and just so creatively done (like you mentioned, the disappearing set etc.) Man...I just love this movie.
I had read the script before the movie came out. I'm not the best reader and there's a lot I can't remember about it, but in the script, they DID get the procedure recurrently. I'm guessing they made the movie more ambiguous because of they didn't want to bum out the audience. That's not always a good thing to do, but I think it worked in Eternal Sunshine's favor, here. As mentioned, the scene at the end hints at it being done over and over.
I REALLY like your idea of going back and rewatching some of the films that were important to yourselves. Charlie Kaufman, is certainly one of the great directors having a style unique to himself; when you see a Kaufman film you know it’s a Kaufman film because no one else would tell it like that. Off the top of my head the only other directors I can think of like that are Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson.
As always I loved hearing your thoughts.
Except that Kaufman didn’t direct Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
@@OldBluesChapterandVerse
No he didn’t direct but he did write the screenplay. I think if watch that film you KNOW that’s a Kaufman film
@@manfredvaegler9661 I agree that his stamp as a *screenwriter* is all over it, but you didn’t refer to him as a “screenwriter” or even as a “filmmaker” (which one uses interchangeably with “director,” but serves as an umbrella designation for writers and producers, too). You referred to him as a “director” in relation to this specific film. 🤷♂️
Dear MH: I’m so impressed by your review of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, a movie that I’ve loved for years. Thank you for the wonderful insights! What an amazing movie. Request?: Aliens/ Inception/ A Dirty Shame. 🤜🏽🤛🏼
I first saw this movie in the movie theater stoned. It was overwhelmingly sad. I thought that Jim Carrey was crying in the car for 20 minutes.!!😂
I started to become a film buff when I was 12/13 and wanted to watch anything on IMBb’s Top 250 that I could find. It was a bit too much for my pubescent developing brain but it lingered in my head and became my comfort film at 14 when I started to come to terms with being gay and while it was a hard time for me personally it was almost like a gateway for me to see the world through an adult lens instead of less simplified childhood one. That sounds dumb but I first declared it as my favourite movie of all time back then and I still stand by it now at 27, after years of rewatches and reassessments of its themes. I can also see so much influence in other films in how the movie is shot, edited and written and the legacy it has now. I can’t believe it’s already 20 years old.
I totally understand. The film oddly aligns with my coming out story as well, though I’m not sure I’ll ever figure out how. Perhaps in the way people both deeply understand and frequently misunderstand one another, the reality and security of those revelations helped me along.
Crazy that you should be rewatching and reviewing this right now, as I’ve had a hankering to rewatch it, too, so tonight I watched it for the second time ever - first time in almost 20 years. And I liked it less than I did back then. It’s still a great film in many, many ways, but here’s the Letterboxd review I wrote tonight:
“In order for loss to be painful, one has to have a rich understanding of what once was. Joel does, but the filmmakers give us, the viewers, only the most cursory of his memories with Clementine - and even then the memories are usually in the midst of erasure. As a result, the film is intellectually and conceptually interesting, but it’s never as emotionally moving as it might have been had it been twice as long and given us the romance before their decision to scrub it out of their hearts. We need to have lived it with them for the absence of it to echo in us.”
Can you review “Jaws”?