Roger Ebert Gave A Perfect Score To Jim Carrey's Heartbreaking Sci-Fi Movie

Critics certainly aren't required to involve any personal anecdotes in their reviews of movies or TV shows, but I find it always adds a little something special to the proceedings. I bring this up because famed film critic Roger Ebert began his perfect four-star review of director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's masterful, mind-bending "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" by talking about the patients he once saw in a ward devoted to caring for patients with Alzheimer's disease. "I was reminded of the passive [patients] while watching 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,'" Ebert mused. "Wiped free of memory, they exist always in the moment, which they accept because it is everything."

If you're familiar with "Eternal Sunshine," and I don't mean the (very good) 2024 album of the same name by Ariana Grande, then you know precisely what Ebert was going on about. Turns out, he absolutely loved the film, which stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as Joel and Clementine, two lovers who simply can't make their relationship work ... something that leads to Clementine literally erasing Joel from her waking memory, prompting Joel to return the favor. But while this is a movie ostensibly "about" a breakup, Ebert, unsurprisingly, realized that the entire film is an ode to love:

"The wisdom in 'Eternal Sunshine' is how it illuminates the way memory interacts with love. We more readily recall pleasure than pain. From the hospital, I remember laughing nurses and not sleepless nights. A drunk remembers the good times better than the hangovers. A failed political candidate remembers the applause. An unsuccessful romantic lover remembers the times when it worked."

This is — again, unsurprisingly — a perfect analysis of "Eternal Sunshine." With that said, in case you'd forgotten, here's what you need to remember about the film.

Again, to be perfectly fair to Jim Carrey's Joel Barish in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," he only pursues the advanced procedure that will erase Kate Winslet's Clementine Kruczynski from his brain because he finds out that she did it first and that she had it done at a strange little facility on New York's Long Island called Lacuna. Run by the offbeat Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (the late, great Tom Wilkinson), Lacuna offers a service where you can have an ex-partner or former loved ones fully wiped from your memories. However, as Joel undergoes the procedure, his body starts having a strange reaction, almost like it's rejecting his erasure of Clementine. As technicians Stan Fink and Patrick Wertz (Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood) destroy Joel's awareness or Clementine along with Lacuna's receptionist Mary Svevo (Kirsten Dunst), Joel's mind begins clinging to memories of Clementine, leading to a strange chase within his own brain. Elsewhere, the dynamic among the conscious people is equally complicated; as it turns out, Mary had an affair with Howard and then had her memories of that affair erased, while Patrick is taking advantage of Joel's knowledge of Clementine to try and woo her. 

I've watched "Eternal Sunshine" a handful of times, and while it's a pretty good movie to pop on if you're wallowing over a lost love, it's also a movie that speaks to the beauty and enduring power of love, especially as we watched a "changed" Joel and Clementine drift towards each other once again as if they're meant to be together. Between Michel Gondry's stunning shots and Kaufman's achingly lovelorn script, "Eternal Sunshine" is, again, about a breakup ... except, it's really about love.

I'll go to my grave arguing that comedy is much harder than drama — largely because of the razor-sharp, precise timing required for the former — and that helps explain why so many of the world's great comedic actors are particularly excellent in dramatic roles as well (and, not for nothing, why the reverse isn't always true). Anyone who's seen Jim Carrey's turn in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" knows that Carrey is an extremely talented dramatic performer, and he really leans into the fact that Joel is, for lack of a kinder term, an absolute sad sack. Obviously, the entire cast of the movie is great — especially Kate Winslet, who manages to elevate Clementine from a "manic pixie dream girl" typical of this era in filmmaking into a real, difficult, and even prickly person that you can't help but love anyway — but Carrey, a man known for his broad comedic talent, is shockingly excellent as Joel.

This isn't Carrey's only foray into a more dramatic realm, if you're looking for more serious roles from the actor. "The Truman Show" is probably commonly viewed as a comedy, as is "The Man on the Moon" (both of which predate "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), but they're still much more dramatic than Carrey vehicles like, say, "Ace Ventura" or "The Mask." That goes double for "I Love You Phillip Morris" and the Showtime series "Kidding," which Carrey headlined as the deeply sad children's entertainer Jeff Piccirillo (known by kids everywhere as Mr. Pickles). Basically, if you want to watch one of Carrey's finest dramatic turns, queue up "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." If it's good enough for Roger Ebert, it's good enough for everyone.