Eternal Sunshine. Better Buy Some Sunglasses.

The first film my wife and I watched together - merely an hour after meeting actually - was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's one of those sorts of films which is an instant classic. They don't come along very often, but when they do, you remember them and you love them. I'd have to say, that as a first film in a relationship, it's a pretty great one. 

Some people have The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - an 'accidental horror', or some people have Toy Story 2. Some unfortunate people also have an idea that going to see a horror film is still a good first date film idea, and then they end up in The Human Centipede instead of Paranormal Activity. Bernadette and I will always have Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. 

Jim Carrey is one very under-appreciated actor. People watch his early films - or Mr Popper's Penguins if you're unlucky - and think, man, that Jim Carrey, he's just a rubber faced hack. But watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or The Truman Show or Man on the Moon is like a constant revelation.

Whilst it's not uncommon for comedic actors to try and break into serious roles, Carrey did it with The Truman Show so seamlessly that you'd be forgiven if you thought he was a completely different actor. I'm not trying to say that Carrey's a new Daniel Day Lewis, but the pain and pathos in Eternal Sunshine and Man on the Moon is immensely powerful. 

People often confuse overacting with good acting. Just because somebody yells a lot or cries a lot in a role, does not automatically make them a great actor. Nicolas Cage for example is able to straddle the two well enough, for every solemn 'put the bunny back in the box' there's an almost psychopathically over the top 'the bees! the bees!'. I'll defend Nicolas Cage in another post on another day though. 

The signs that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a perfect first date movie is how Kaufman's script deals with the difficulties of a relationship. Some days there is a great pain that you want gone, that you want out of your life, but those days of pain are there for a reason. They're there because you love the person you're with and the pain is worth going through for the love alone. 

Whilst a film like 50 First Dates attempts to show someone working at a relationship, it's still an impossible film. It's a film which a relationship would never be able to match up to. The unreality of Hollywood romances is a painful one to watch at times. Whilst 50 First Dates dabbles with a similar idea as Eternal Sunshine - only one character can't remember the relationship though - it does so in a spectacularly over the top Hollywood fashion. 

I shouldn't really be comparing the two, just as I shouldn't recommend Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as a first date film to everyone, but I do think that Eternal Sunshine is a film of which a great relationship can be built. I'm glad it's the first film my wife and I watched together. It's not one we watch often, but we will always have it as our first film, and for that I'm thankful. 

Edit: I wrote this post late at night and didn't actually post it for some reason. Anyhow, I'm not re-reading it because it's a mess and I doubt I'd actually post it if I re-read it. It's a bit of a ramble about Jim Carrey being great, first films and for some reason, random criticism and comparison of 50 First Dates and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. So, for that, apologies from me for the rambling nonsensical post.