One of the most beautifully executed films I’ve seen, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind redeems my faith in good movie-making. With the Hollywood machine churning out a daily ration of schlock, it’s refreshing to have a screenwriter who takes you on an unexpected and visually stunning ride, while never losing sight of the message. In the end, Eternal Sunshine is a romantic comedy, with all the trappings, and none of the trapped feeling.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet shine as star-crossed lovers of a present tense. While Jim Carrey stands out as Joel, a character far removed from his typically manic alter-egos, he evidenced a difficult time bringing emotion to the part without his trademark energy. He is almost too good and too deeply engrained in the role, and while he remains true to the character, he forgets to be a dramatist.

Winslet is flawless. Her accent is absent throughout the movie, and had I not seen her name in association with it, I would have needed to be reminded which actress was behind the dream-faced nightmare of Clementine. She is a self-titled and self-aware fuck-up, at once ambitious and impulsive. She makes no apologies for these flaws, but occasionally recognizes that her life would be easier if she were a little more grounded.

In one of the more perfectly written lines, Clementine asks Joel to remember that she will not “save his life” or “complete him,” no matter how perfect her impetuousness may seem to his gloom. The characters know themselves so well that each argument has a hyper-realism that makes the audience magnificently uncomfortable.

The movie is more than an exercise in acting, however. Charlie Kaufman wields a mighty weapon in his bizarre storytelling style. Without emphasizing the sci-fi nature of his premise, Kaufman allows his meaning to come through in a medium so seemingly normal that you never doubt for a second that memories could be erased with a strange brainwave device that looks like a 50’s cone hair-dryer.

So, Clementine and Joel become the focus. And as deeply troubled as they each are, their love endears them to the audience in a way that their respective aggressive nonchalance and stubborn melancholy never could. The audience sees how destructive their relationship can be and wants them together anyway, not out of pity, but out of an intangible humanity.

If there is a deeper message in the film, it may be this: We cling to our memories because we have so little else to define us, yet they still fail. We have difficulty seeing past current pain to happy defining memories.

In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the clich?d moral, “It is better to have loved and lost…” is updated with a new millenium feeling of jaded acceptance. Joel and Clementine must literally hold on to the memories that made them love one another. With it comes pain, but when given the choice, what human being would want to live without theirs?