Directed by Michel Gondry
Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman
Story by Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth

Let's get one thing straight--I thought Being John Malkovich was amusing, but I never want to see it again; and I hated Adaptation with an Elaine-vs-The English Patient fervor! But this Kaufman outing is completely different--no stale swipes at Hollywood genres, no kvetching about the problems writers face when they have to "compromise"--just a fascinating plunge into the related problems of memory and character-as-destiny...

It's very much in the "Punch-Drunk-In-Translation" vein, with the added benefit that here the social environment doesn't even have to be "surrealized", because we know from the start that most of these events are taking place inside a person's brain... The film does a wonderful job of conveying a real sense of the "heteroglossia" that maturing writers strive for--memories of loved ones become reified chunks of otherness within the mind, paving the way for an infinite array of possible recombinations, the best of which have the substantiality of actual relationships! That's creativity folks!

Despite the tagline, this film really isn't another kick at the innocence vs. experience can... My favourite scene features Carrey & Winslet (who are both excellent) wandering through an empty, darkened building on the beach, testing each other... You get a brilliant dramatization here of the only real power that we possess: the ability to look at ourselves... Who's doing the looking? Who's under the microscope? Who knows? But you know you can do it, and that's all that matters, right? The ability to accept. It's the only possible basis for human equality, and it's good enough for me... Rationalization is self-inflicted brain-damage... I'm telling you, this movie is (quietly) thrilling... Especially if you know and love Dieterle's Portrait of Jennie!

(careful now, you are about to enter the SPOILER-ZONE)

Most of the complaints I've heard have centered upon the "real time" story involving Dunst, Ruffalo, Wilkinson, and the boomeranged interview tapes... Frankly, I don't think this film would be anywhere near as strong without the coda. There's a real predestinarian streak running through the whole story--and the final conversation is the icing on this Calvinist cake!

As I mentioned a few paragraphs back, I don't believe that this is just another "better to have loved and lost" sermon in favour of "experience". As I see it, what's really at stake is this: can you accept the fact that the people we are drawn to romantically are destined never to give us the things we think we want from them? The "spots" on the mind aren't "bad experiences"--they represent bitterness and love recanted...

I've never heard a better theory on "love at first sight" either--when that kind of instant intimacy develops between people, it does feel like they're sliding into lacunae that have always been there waiting for them. That heady first meeting is not the cheezy "you complete me" kind of event that most recent romcoms have given us--it's more like a subtle reprogramming of (badly damaged) memory circuits...