A soppy film about love...that somehow manages to not actually be soppy (it's just the final "message" that's kinda soppy, even if you agree with it)
Essentially, this is a film about how "love triumphs over all", but this only becomes certain in your mind right at the end. It manages to make the ending uncertain enough for those of us who watch films more just for pure entertainment. It also, take note, shows that both Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett are more than capable of playing characters beyond the somewhat limited ranges they're known for (whether unfairly or not), but more to the point, playing them well. There's not alot of Carrey's famous Gurning-on-speed, and Winslett's fiery, near-ADD scary scatterbrain is...disturbingly attractive. Maybe I just have a strange taste in women, eh?
The storyline begins normally enough, and in fact almost makes you wonder what's so great about it. It looks like it's gonna be a textbook romantic comedy, with little to distinguish it above the rest of such pap. It feels like most of the film has already been shown after about the first 15 minutes. But just as it begins to slow, things get a little more interesting - Kate's character, Clementine ("no jokes about my name!") appears to have suffered some kind of large-scale memory loss. This throws Carrey's character, Joel, into a pit of despair. He visits a couple of good friends of his, and happens to catch sight of something he shouldn't - a mysterious card that says Clementine has undergione a procedure to erase him from her memory.
Here's where the real fun begins, and a good two-thirds, or there abouts, of the film involves Joel reliving his own memories of Clementine, with us along for the ride. It gets a little crazy, then not far from the end, you realise that although the timeline jumps around in a couple of places, it does so just enough to ensure the film's ending isn't immediately obvious.
Overall, Eternal Sunshine... is a film about love. The message is a bit soppy, but most of the story isn't. And it's both funnier, and better overall, than Love, Actually. 5/5