Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind – which draws its unwieldy title (take that, marketing division!) from Alexander Pope’s fantastically overwrought poem ‘Eloise At Abelard’ – is a spectacular dive off the end of La Jetee into waters not truly braved since Alan Renais’ brilliantly bizarre Je T’aime, Je T’aime.
The confounding opening scenes have downcast protagonist Joel (Carrey) deviating from his presumably habitual route to work and impetuously jumping a train to the beach, whereupon he soon encounters blue-haired wildling Clementine (Winslet). She’s unconventional, intense and bright-burning. He’s shy and slightly dour with an undeniable rumpled charm. They share one of those ‘she hit me and it felt like a kiss moments’.
So far, so every other rom-com. Aye, but here’s the rub. Joel and Clementine have previous. In fact, they’ve been in a relationship for years. They just don’t know it. On impulse, Clementine has availed of the services of Lacuna Inc. – a barmy, unlicensed memory-erasing company – to remove all traces of Joel. Like Pope’s star-crossed Eloise then, Carrey’s dog-eared hero is faced with a choice between unruly passion and painless tranquility. Angered by her actions he signs up for the latter, and opts to counter-erase Clementine.
What follow are shards of fragmented, disintegrating memories as they float to the surface during the Clementine-removal procedure. Alas, Joel realises too late that he needs to hold on to her, so he must frantically scramble to hide something of Clementine away in his head before she’s lost and gone forever.
Jean-Luc Godard has it that a movie should have a beginning, middle and end, but not in that order. Eternal Sunshine manages to have a beginning, middle and end all at once. It’s a wonderfully elaborate, temporally unbalanced sci-fi brainteaser resembling Kaufman’s previous output (yes, there are masturbation gags), yet without the ashen aftertaste that characterised the stalker power ballads of Malkovich and Adaptation. As Joel’s recollections run backwards – and with weird mobius logic to add to the overall mindfuck – there’s a creeping tenderness as our pair get back to their first meeting. And while they’re probably not the most endearing couple in cinematic history – she’s a drunk and he’s a whinger – they do grow on you thanks to the film’s uniquely grotty, gloomy lyricism which precisely mimics the traumatic delirium of falling in love.
Director Michel Gondry (creator of some of the best music videos ever for Björk, Chemical Brothers, Beck and Daft Punk) does wonders with recognizably grungy Kaufman terrain - commendably lo-tech, Luddite-friendly special effects work in tandem with dingy, brown interiors and grumbling domestic disquiet – and his efforts are greatly enhanced by the best ensemble cast this year. Even the supporting Lacuna drones are exceptional. Kirsten Dunst’s over-amorous, airheaded receptionist (must be method acting) is a comedic delight, as is Elijah Wood’s knicker-sniffing stalker (bless his little webbed socks, he’s just far too hobbity to exude any menace whatsoever). Better still, the normally smouldering Mark Ruffalo shows up as a goofy geek-boy technician cast somewhere between the accomplished buffoonery of Johnny Depp and Jerry Lewis.
Of course, the show really belongs to Carrey and Winslet. Carrey’s performance is beautifully interior, devoid of the lip-trembling excesses that have marred his prior ‘serious’ outings. And Winslet – who I normally don’t take to outside the glorious Enid Blyton lacrosse-wielding heroine milieu she’s made her own – is splendidly neurotic.
As Adaptation opens, Tilda Swinton suggests that a Being John Malkovich-inspired portal into the mind of Charlie Kaufman might be a bit of a lark. Damned right. A trawl through his off-kilter, eerily lovelorn, bittersweet psyche would be a ride well worth queuing all night with a deckchair for. But until we have the relevant technology, I’ll happily make do with this illogical, sublime affair to remember.

108mins. cert 15pg