The premise – Carrey seeks to have his memories of Winslet erased after learning that she had her memories of him erased – is alright, except that the very long movie doesn't manage to evoke anything close to the necessary emotional heft you'd expect from this kind of situation … it all comes off as a bunch of actor-fodder, the sort of bullshit content that drew name stars to Dogville. Carrey, to his credit, is more credible here than anywhere else, but I couldn't help feeling the film had been stunt-cast, and that other actors (Joaquin Phoenix, Zooey Deschanel, etc) would have been better choices to make ESOTSM come across as more than a stunt. The non-linear narrative and "hip" performances would seem to indicate a wonderful indie-nerd feature, but Eternal Sunshine is really a composite of "cool" lighting, "atypical" performances," mediocre scoring, and misanthropic writing working together to convince would-be hipsters that this is a "real" alternative to, like, When Harry Met Sally. What it is, though, is a bunch of shit. Everyone's had a bad, yet deeply meaningful, relationship; get the fuck over it and find the next one instead of pouring your animus into a fucking screenplay, asshole.
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