On this Valentine's Day Harry ponders Kaufman's ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND!!!

This Valentine’s Day I thought that I would take some time out to write about a script filled with the essence of love. The upsides and downsides.

You’ve had a chance to see the first four Charlie Kaufman screenplays come to life, and I think I can say that we have all been impressed by what we’ve seen. I know for me, as I watch Kaufman’s career unfurl, I can say that I have never seen a screenwriter so breathlessly defy convention. In an industry of contrivances, his work is an oasis of creativity and originality.

Having just read ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, I am absolutely convinced this script far outshines anything he has done before. To read it, is to dream of a perfect film. A film that is entertaining and funny on a surface level, but that has so much to say about love, anguish, sanity, despair, heartache, destiny and futility.

Like a brilliant Phillip K Dick unpublished manuscript given perfect screenplay treatment, I find myself… starry eyed. Here in the ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND I have found a script, that if realized as well as the film that played in my mind as my eyes poured over those magical pages… Well, all at once it could be one of the smartest science fiction films ever conceived.

Kaufman has taken the “wish” that we’ve all had when love dies between two. That “wish” that you could forget your ex-significant other. That you could forget that first kiss, forget those passionate hours and days, the conversations about the future and the past, the shared dreams, the hopes, the feel against one another, the way light bounced off their skin or clothes clung to them while walking. The sparkle in their eye, the look on their face that defined their recognition that you meant something in their life. These are sweet things, why forget them, why wish to forget them, because when love dies… when the relationship falters and trips and falls apart. Those looks are gone, the sparkle dead, the dreams become exactly that, something you wake from wishing you could recapture. The “what ifs” and the futility of trying to figure out what to do. The self-loathing, the anger, the frustration. It all crescendos into that moment where you find yourself wishing that it had never happened at all.

Why? Because it would be easier that way. You hate where you are and everything that got you to that point. Charlie Kaufman gets that, but then… he gets quite a bit more. What would happen if you and the person whom you used to love could just forget ever meeting one another. Would you meet again? What if the two of you were destined to be together? If you were soul mates?

Charlie Kaufman has written one of the greatest sheer explorations of what it is to love and to lose than has perhaps ever been written. Bold statement indeed, but nevertheless it is true for me.

The only science fiction aspect of the entire film has to do with the “miracle” of memory removal. There is a company in the future that you can go to to FORGET. Imagine how wonderful this would be. Abused as a child? Erase it. Served in the Vietnam War and scarred by the memory? Well, erase it. That’s right, disposable memories. Deliberate amnesia.

Obviously in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, this premise is applied to a couple played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. There are other characters with their own issues and motivations, but the center and heart of the film lays with those two characters. The possibilities here for greatness are highly probable. Carrey can be heartbreaking in this film. Winslet, my god what a role, she has her best role since HEAVENLY CREATURES with this film. Kirsten Dunst’s part has the potential to be her best as well, if she rises above her work in THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, which I believe she can.

The thing that kills me is just how wonderfully new this is. I hear that Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo are considering a remake of THE THIN MAN or Brendan Frasier signing aboard a remake of THE 10TH VICTIM or Bill Paxton taking the lead along with Ben Kingsley in a live-action feature film adaptation of THUNDERBIRDS… Meanwhile there is hope… There is Charlie Kaufman writing this masterpiece. Richard Kelly writing his DOMINO, BESSIE and KNOWING. Oh and then there is Caroline Thompson and her brilliant script for THE GREAT JOHNNY ECK. There are folks out there fighting the redundancy and the tired.

The brilliance of this script lays in its ability to constantly surprise. Once Carrey’s character decides to take his pills and go to sleep… and the technicians are there to erase his ex-girlfriend from his memory, we enter his mind (along with other storylines) and there in his memory, his dreams, we see him and Winslet as they were being erased. Like a tragically real Daffy Duck in DUCK AMUCK, his subconscious dream self is aware of what is happening and realizes… helplessly that he does not wish to lose these memories, these moments, these times. He tries desperately to fight and cling to moments, Winslet is a living character in his dreams that offers to help preserve her loving memory in his memory by hiding in times she was not a part of. He takes her on a soul bearing, heart aching revelation of self that is just brutal. The sort of tortured memories you bury so deep that you never reveal them, here, he takes that which he has loved more than anything and takes her to his most vulnerable moments, to witness his humiliation, his grief and his anguish. These moments could be great, on paper they are, but will Gondry realize them or waste them? I pray he delivers. I truly do.

I love this script. Breaking up and losing the ones you love, thought you loved and wish loved you… those memories and how we deal with the loss and absence and pain of parting… so beautifully revealed in this script. This could be a masterpiece at the end of the year. The type of film that makes you scream for joy, and hold your dear ones closer. And watch on future Valentine's Days forever more.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone.