|
The Main Characters
--Joel Barish (Jim Carey) is a guy who doesn’t have anything going on in his life at all. He recently split with his long-time girlfriend, Naomi, and just works. Of course, this changes when he meets Clementine and has quite the romance.
--Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) is a free-soul who colors her hair odd colors very often. She meets Joel and the two start a colorful romance. Until she erases him from her memory.
--Dr. Henry Mierzwiack (Tom Wilkinson) is the founder of Lacuna Inc., a place where you can erase memories. Both Clementine and Joel will meet this man and get there memories erased of each other.
--Rob (David Cross) is one of the men who performs the memory erasing procedure while the patient is asleep in their home.
--Mary (Kirsten Dunst) is Rob’s girlfriend and also the secretary at Lacuna.
--Patrick (Elijah Wood) is Rob’s assistant in the memory erasing procedure.
The Setting
Around Valentine’s day in New York, specifically Montauk and Rockville Centre.
The Plot
Joel Barish and Clementine Kruzynski are seeing each other. They are not your typical couple. Joel is a plain old guy who goes to work every day while Clementine is a free-wheeling go with the flow type of gal. She is what many would call eccentric and likes to color her hair all sorts of odd colors, like blue. They met while Joel was at a beach party in Montauk and things progressed from there. Of course, there are hardships as there are in any relationship. Clementine likes to stay out late while Joel stays in and after one such argument Clementine leaves Joel. She goes to Lacuna to get her memories of Joel erased. When Joel shows up to see her at her Barnes and Noble job, she has no idea who he is, since she erased him. Joel doesn’t know what to make of this and unwittingly finds a note sent to his friend saying Clementine erased him from her memory. Joel goes to Lacuna raging mad at this, and since he wasn’t ever supposed to see the letter, the founder of Lacuna, Dr. Mierzwiack, gives him some preferential treatment and offers to erase Joel’s memory of Clementine. Joel accepts and when he goes to bed that night, Rob and Patrick, the memory erasers, come to his house to erase Clementine from his head. As they are erasing Joel, in his sleep, realizes that this is a mistake and tries everything to hide Clementine in his memory so that he can remember her.
My Review
Something happened to me when I saw this movie that never happened before after seeing this movie. I didn’t know if I liked it or not. I sat there watching the movie and when it was over I just said to myself, “Did I like this?” After many days of deliberation, I relaized that I didn’t like it. I loved it. It is the second best movie I’ve seen this year (Big Fish is number 1). It is captivating and brilliant and amazing all at the same time. There is deep meaning to the movie. How one can still get together with someone even after getting their memory erased from your brain, as if fate and destiny can’t be changed. A word of warning though. There is apparently no middle ground to this movie. You either love it or hate it. I haven’t spoken to anyone yet who said, I kind of liked it, or I kind of disliked it, it was OH HOW GREAT, or, OH HOW AWFUL. I don’t want to say the people who hated didn’t get it, but they probably didn’t get it. I’ve heard some say this movie is like a bad acid trip with all the cutting back and forth and and unique camera angles. Overall, I’d say you have to go see this movie. Jim Carey gives the best performance of his career and Kate Winslet is unbelievable as an eccentric crazyish girl. The shooting of the film is very different too. The odd lighting schemes make it seem almost real.
To summarize. You have to see this movie, just to try it. If you hate it you hate it, if not, you’ll love it. It’s unlike any movie in the theaters right now. Don’t let the low box office totals scare you away, movies like this with little hype rarely make much, but it’s really an incredible movie.
Overall Rating
****
|
