October 22, 2011

Popcorn photo courtesy of Free Digital Photos.

I’ve decided to start doing movie reviews occasionally. Reason why? Watching movies is a great way to help with your writing. Seriously. Plotting, characters, etc. – all those elements are in a movie. I used to watch movies a lot back in the day. However, in recent years, time just gets away from me and I just don’t watch movies like I used to.

I viewed Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind starring Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey a couple of weeks ago. I rented it on Amazon and watched it on my laptop one week night. I actually enjoyed it.

***Note, this is a secular movie.Can you imagine, having a torrid romance to end badly, and then having that person erased from you mind? Well, that’s what this movie is about.

Clementine (Kate Winslet’s character) falls in love with Jim Carrey. Two trouble souls have a torrid romance that ends badly. Clementine wants Jim Carrey erased from her mind. There’s a company that will do this – erase a significant other from your mind. They hook you up to a machine and when you wake up, you feel like you’ve had a hang-over and you have no recollection of your romance.

Before the eraser people put you under, you must bring all objects and momentos relating to the romance with you. You don’t want these things lingering in your home after the person is erased from your mind – after all, you’ll have no recollection of the item and having a love letter, gift, etc. from your erased relationship will only confuse you.

Jim Carrey is confused when he runs into Clemntine working at a bookstore. It appears she doesn’t even know who he is. Befuddled, Jim Carrey accidentally discovers that Clementine has had him erased from her mind. He’s determined to go through the same process – he wants to erase Clementine from his mind. However, havoc arises when Jim Carrey is put under – he discovers that he wants to hang onto Clementine’s memories.

Since he no longer wants to erase Clementine from his mind, he finds himself trying to hide his memories from the eraser people. The erasers are finding Jim to be a difficult patient, and they find the memories in weird spots on his brain.

This movie was a bit unusual and eclectic. It’s a love story with a bit of sci-fi/fantasy thrown into the mix. As I was thinking about this movie, I wondered, what if this same concept was used for other memories, not just botch romantic memories. Like, what if you could erase the memories of a spouse, or, what if you’d had a child who’d died and you were grieving? Would you want to erase those memories to feel better? I’m thinking, initially, you might want to, but, going through traumatic, tragic and sad moments are what shape us into the people we are today. If we could conveniently erase every bad memory, then, well, the world would be strange place.

Did you see this movie? If so, what did you think of it? Can you think of a memory that you’d consider erasing?