Ah, For a Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind opens on March 19.

I was thrilled to read the extended piece in the Sunday Times about it, and about Michael Gondry, the director – who has teamed up with Charlie Kaufman (screenwriter for Adaptation).

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is exceptionally good, a strange and touching romance about Joel and Clementine, a mismatched couple played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, who choose to have their memories of each other erased after they break up. Most of the action takes place on the night the technicians — including Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood — are eliminating Joel’s memories as he sleeps, and he recalls the relationship even while he’s forgetting it.

With his poignant, toned-down performance, this may be the best work Jim Carrey has ever done. The intricate Charlie Kaufman script offers the mind-games of “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation,” and then some. Yet this is distinctly a Michel Gondry film, and not simply because he collaborated on the story. The emotional warmth and tenderness — qualities not usually found in a brash Carrey blockbuster or a cerebral Kaufman screenplay — are typical of Mr. Gondry’s work, drawn heavily from his own dreams and memories. “Eternal Sunshine” is filled with wit and magical images: Ms. Winslet’s hair is bright blue one day, orange the next; Ms. Winslet and Mr. Carrey awake in a bed on a snowy beach. But it is also something of a love song to memory itself, arguing that even our painful memories should be treasured — as a hedge against the future, if not as tokens of love.

Sometimes when you see a preview 287 times you get to the point where either

A. You feel you have already seen the entire film because the preview gives it all away, and so you feel no burning need to go see it when it actually opens

B. You are already SICK of the film by the time it opens. It has jumped the shark before anyone has even seen the damn thing.

C. You wonder to yourself: “Wow. Seems like the studio is over-promoting this, or pushing it on us way too early. There must be something wrong with that film.” (The Life of David Gale was a case in point. I saw that preview so many times that I experienced A, B, and then C in succession. And when the film came out, and got laughably horrible reviews, and promptly disappeared, I felt vindicated in my hatred of the film based on the damn preview.)

I have seen the preview of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind probably 10 or 11 times by now.

That preview should be studied in film school. Or marketing school. Or in a class with a title like: “How to construct a really great film preview”. I’m sure that class exists somewhere.

And there is definitely an art in constructing a good preview. Some previews are so exciting and create such a burning need in the audience to see them that crowds burst into applause. Others provoke laughter, when obviously you are supposed to be serious.

I remember seeing the preview for Swimfan, and somehow – the preview BOMBED. It is supposed to be a serious thriller, a kind of Fatal Attraction, and the audience burst out laughing throughout the whole thing. It would be interesting to analyze it, frame by frame: What went wrong, why isn’t this conveying what we want it to convey … blah blah blah…

But for whatever reason, as many times as I have seen the preview for Eternal Sunshine, I have not gotten sick of it. I am STILL eager to see the film.

I suppose if Jim Carrey makes you gag and you hate him, you might not have my response. I love the guy, and I’ll go see him do anything.

But it’s not at all about who’s in the thing. The preview succeeds for other reasons.

The music, for one. ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky”. The choice of music could not be more perfect, more exciting.

But there’s more: There are strange images in the preview – unexplained – poetic – like something in a dream. I want to go see the film, to see how these strange images fit together.

A double bed standing alone on a windswept snowy beach. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet curled up under the covers.

The two of them running through what looks like a library, darkened book shelves, with a flashlight beam pursuing them.

A door opening, and there is Elijah Wood standing there, wearing glasses with slinky-like coils popping down, a goofy grin on his face.

An elephant strolling down Broadway, through a packed Times Square.

Kate Winslet’s hair changes color and style in every scene you see her in. Her hair is bright pink, her hair is Little Orphan Annie orange, her hair is blue.

All while the music pounds. It’s the magic of advertising, I suppose. The first time I saw the preview, the audience all started clapping at the end of it – and I could feel the buzz around me. (As opposed to feeling the scorn, derision, and humorous contempt – like you can feel with bombs like Swimfan).

I said to my friend Allison, “That is a classic example of a GREAT preview. It should be studied.”

Which made me nervous. Could it be a great preview for a terrible movie? The preview for Life of David Gale was powerful. Riveting. (At least the first couple of times I saw it.) However, once the thing opened, the good preview was revealed as the rickety facade it was. A facade hiding emptiness.

You can’t fool an audience forever.

The preview for Eternal Sunshine continued to excite me, despite my nagging worries: “Is this another Life of David Gale?” So the piece in the New York Times is even more thrilling.

I wonder if this will be one of those movies. Those special gem-like movies. Like Being John Malkovich or something. A movie that can’t, honestly, be compared to anything else – because it is so much the personal vision of one person.