Charlie Kaufman's scripts are hit and miss with me. I enjoyed "Adaptation," but didn't like "Being John Malkovich." This time, he hit on a severely low budget scale with "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

"Eternal Sunshine…" tells the tale of Joel, who is heartbroken after being dumped by Clementine. Joel finds out she had him "erased" from her memory, so she wouldn't feel the pain of the break up any longer. In turn, he does the same.

In the procedure, technicians from the service stay the night with the patient and use their gear to remove every point on a map of memory regarding the person requested for removal. Yes, the picture is weird.

However, as the technicians begin to remove the GREAT memories of Clementine from Joel's head, he changes his decision. However, he's drugged, and technicians can't hear him. Plus, they're busy trying to get laid.

Joel takes his memories of Clementine and runs to places in his memory she has no place in, where the techs can't find her. For example, she joins him when he's four years old, trying to get his mother's attention, or as a teenager, masturbating to a dirty drawing when his mother walks in on him; a very crafty plot twist.

We also have a subplot where Kristen Dunst is hot for the doctor and inventor of this service, only to find out she already had an affair with him and it was erased from her memory. Pretty cool.

That's about all I can describe without someone seeing the picture or reading the screenplay. Kaufman's struggle to produce quality independent and original story ideas pays off well. However, the film does have its short comings.

The story is SO unusual, it may lose people. My confidence in the mental capacity of the general moviegoing audience isn't much when people say things like, "'Armageddon' was the best movie I ever saw." Uhg. So I know, this picture is not their cup of tea.

The cinematography is very sketchy. This, for the most part, I really thought was fitting. French director Michel Gondry, who also helped the story writing, used several unusual camera techniques to show Joel's memory is "sketchy" and without detail. In some scenes, he is shown with tunnel vision. Some may call these techniques "too artsy." I think its an accurate view from inside Joel's head. However, I will say, the style gets overworked in a handful of scenes and basically distracting to the performances.

Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty) stars as Joel with a very subdued approach to a man scorned by a woman. Believe me, I felt for him. There were very few "Jim Carrey" moments for him, and thus shows his range in a more realistic role; opposite his contrived performance in "The Truman Show."

Kate Winslet plays Clementine in the first role she's had where I actually believe her character and somewhat enjoy watching her. Usually, I dislike everything she does, especially "Titanic." That's right, I said "Titanic." That sucked too.

Supporting performances come from Mark Ruffalo (Collateral) as a technician, Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings trilogy) as his little wormy bastard partner and Tom Wilkinson (In the Bedroom) as Doc Howard, inventor of the procedure. All of them I bought in their respective screen times.

The worst thing I can say about this picture is, if you haven't loved anyone in your life to where, upon breaking up, you prayed constantly to get them out of your thoughts and end the pain involved, this picture will fly WAY over your head. NOTHING Joel does will make sense, unless you can empathize with him whole heatedly. The film definitely limits its younger demographic. The same youthful demographic which may be the only audience to like its style. Older people may get turned off by the film's camera trickery.

However, as indie films go, this is one of the better ones I've seen this year and improves Kaufman's batting average with me.

The DVD disc has plenty of special features to help the viewer understand what the hell is going on. That's a plus. If you're in a wacky mood, rent "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." You may hate me for suggesting it, but I don't care.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?