Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Focus Features | Release Date: March 19, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
89
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
40
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Not only (Kaufman's) most accessible and romantic screenplay, it's his most complete. The third act works like a charm and pulls all his themes, characters and conflicts together beautifully. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
A wildly imaginative, hugely entertaining tour de force that asks big questions about life and love and fate while never ceasing to fully engage the viewer. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Chases so many ideas that it threatens to spin out of control. But with our multiplexes stuffed with toxic Hollywood formula, it's a gift to find a ballsy movie that thinks it can do anything, and damn near does. Read full review
90
VarietyTodd McCarthy
If films about coping with memory loss and/or reverse-order storytelling now constitute a mini-genre, then Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is arguably the best of the lot. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
There aren't many performers who can deliver the fullness of heart that such a plot demands, but Winslet is one of them. [22 March 2004, p. 102]
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
For most of Eternal Sunshine, I found myself fighting off Gondry's hyperactive intrusions in order to get at the melancholia at its core. Fortunately, the idea behind this movie is so richly suggestive that it carries you past Gondry's image clutter. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
This is unlike any other film I have seen... it's a great romance. It's willingness to flout conventions and eschew formulas is just one of many things to celebrate about this charmingly eccentric movie. Read full review
90
TimeRichard Corliss
Kaufman may be counting on the audience's will, insistence and yearning to create a coherent love story from the shards and shrapnel he provides us. Read full review
90
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
It's a baroque and intermittently brilliant brain twister so convoluted that it inevitably deposits the viewer in an alternate universe. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Watching Eternal Sunshine, you don't just watch a love story -- you fall in love with what love really is. Read full review
90
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
A surprisingly bittersweet love story at heart, Eternal Sunshine values the sum of experience, which in this case means a thorns-and-all openness to romantic possibilities. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyJohn Powers
So daring, well-made and tirelessly inventive that I kept asking myself, “Why isn't this even better? Why isn't it moving me?” One huge problem is the hero... he's played by 42-year-old Jim Carrey, whose still-bottomless need to be loved invariably smacks of desperation and self-pity. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMark Caro
Always engaging, never boring. You constantly appreciate Kaufman's intelligence and Gondry's lively filmmaking. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
For all the silliness, Kaufman is posing a serious question: Are we better off forgetting things that brought us pain, especially if we didn't change or grow as a result? You may not agree with his conclusion, but who else in Hollywood would pose this query at all, or explore it in such a daffy, gratifyingly inventive way? Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
A thoughtful, audacious meditation on love and relationships that finds a group of wildly disparate talents clicking together in perfect unison. Read full review
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
It's a trippy but tender examination of human emotions, relationships, all-consuming love. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
A complicated story that demands your full attention; Mr. Gondry unfolds it at a mind-bending pace. This alone makes it a hugely refreshing respite from ordinary multiplex fare. Read full review
100
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Feels like something entirely brand-new; such are the gifts of Kaufman and Gondry, inventors and magicians. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
For once, Carrey is more than merely tolerable. He's actually good, and the film that ebbs and flows around him is something you won't soon forget. Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
A delightful little wormhole that takes us on a journey to another dimension of consciousness. Read full review
100
New York PostLou Lumenick
Audacious, thought-provoking and ruefully funny. Read full review
100
SlateDavid Edelstein
This is the best movie I've seen in a decade. For once it's no hyperbole to say, "Unforgettable!" Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Despite jumping through the deliberately disorienting hoops of its story, Eternal Sunshine has an emotional center, and that's what makes it work. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
A memory play and a sleight of hand, Eternal Sunshine is more than anything else deeply sincere. Like Spike Jonze, who directed "Adaptation" and "Being John Malkovich," Gondry succeeds principally by balancing Kaufman's churning skepticism with unflinching hope. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
You'll be rewarded with a terrific finale. The twists here are the rare sort that seem both narratively surprising and emotionally engaging. Read full review
70
The New York TimesElvis Mitchell
This angular and intelligent romantic comedy isn't entirely consistent. Even as you laugh, it's a movie you admire more than love. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The thinking is shallow. The emotions are tepid. But the creativity is dazzling. If that sounds like a slam, consider that most Hollywood screenplays are predictable, rote and functional -- and those are the good ones, folks. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
A masterpiece? Probably. Ingenious? Absolutely! Unforgettable? I'll see you at the 10th-year anniversary. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
While it's flawed and often tedious, Kaufman's script is, on the whole, boldly imaginative and enjoyably challenging. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
It is by turns comic, dark and surprisingly tender. If one must reduce it to simple description, call it a love story with a twist. Or a twisted love story. Read full review
90
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Neither wholly cynical nor wholly romantic, Kaufman's story is a balance of smarts and sentiment. It's the most fully realized working out of his two favorite obsessions: the subjective nature of experience and the psychological mysteries of pair bonding. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
One of those rare collaborations that artists dream of, and that film lovers crave.
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Wants to be a bittersweet comedy about erotic loss and memory loss. But it doesn't have the heart or brain. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
This is the art-film Carrey: repressed, lovesick, unshaven. Essentially he's doing the same intellectual sad sack played by John Cusack in "Malkovich" and Nicolas Cage in "Adaptation" Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
A Chayefsky movie isn't hard to identify, but I think it's safe to say that these days a Charlie Kaufman movie is even more recognizable. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Adventuresome, melancholy and exhilarating. Read full review
100
Film ThreatMariko McDonald
Fresh, heartfelt and ultimately heartbreaking in its honest portrayal of a modern relationship. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Represents a failure of nerve: As if Gondry and Kaufman weren't sure that the story of Joel and Clementine would hold us, the doomed couple's unfolding-in-reverse romance is intercut with a subplot filled with zany touches. Read full review
90
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Ingenious, exhilarating, funny and profound. Read full review
100
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Gondry's virtuosity lifts the film far past science fiction into cinematic efflorescence. He shows us, more seductively than other directors have done, how freehand use of film can capture the flashes in our minds that slip between words. Read full review
80
EmpireColin Kennedy
Not particularly funny, or even very sunny, but it is Charlie Kaufman’s first whole screenplay, and as wonderful as it is weird. Read full review
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