Movie review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

First, the Netflix summary:

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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Jim Carrey stars as Joel in this offbeat romantic comedy about a guy who opts for a procedure in which memories of his girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), are erased after he discovers she's opted for the surgery, too. But as his doctor (Tom Wilkinson) begins to wipe out traces of Clementine, Joel decides he doesn't want to lose what's left of their relationship, so he squirrels away the memories he wants to keep somewhere else in his brain.
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The film's title is taken from a quote by Alexander Pope:

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.

This movie is founded on an intriguing premise -- what if you could erase your most disturbing, painful memories? [Ironically, I was once in a research group meeting where a professor said he wished he could erase the memories he had of his mother. I responded that you can't selectively delete memories. As a counterpoint, I pointed out that he wouldn't want to lose the memories of his two-year old daughter.] Returning to the subject at hand, the movie seems to say that even if one could selectively erase memories, one could not really escape life's problems. Joel and Clementine are an unhappy couple. Their relationship is hanging by shreds. They have their memories of each other blanked. Yet the next day, they end up meeting and hooking up -- purely by chance. Or is it really chance? We're attracted to certain people for certain reasons and cleaning the slate does not change our predispositions. I'm certainly not an advocate of this extreme form of therapy. Painful memories teach good lessons (most of the time). As some famous philospher said, you can't know happiness without sadness.

Stylistically, the movie has many flashbacks and stream-of-consciousness moments, from Joel's point of view. The nonlinearity of time makes for an entertaining mind trip (though not as crazy as Memento). Also, there is some weirdness -- technicians running around in their underwear while erasing a man's memory.

Overall, a very unique and fun movie. Thumbs up.