Apollo High School

I was sitting in the theater last night, thinking about how completely pathetic it is to go to a movie alone, when I saw all of the people in the rows in front of me. They were all these nice pairs, these groupings of people: couples on first dates, friends giggling cacophonously.

People need that to an extent. Someone to sit and talk to while they’re playing the inoffensive pop-rock crap they play instead of my Elliott Smith records. I, however, didn’t have any friends to accompany me on this particular night. Not for not trying: I called three friends, and three times I was informed that they had previous engagements. If it had been any other movie, I would have just gone home and cut my losses, but I had been waiting to see Eternal Sunshine for a year and a half. I'm glad I stayed, because I was blown completely out of the water.

I was already familiar with Kaufman's work as a writer, and am, in fact, somewhat infatuated with his scripts, and the excentricity and warped brilliance of his stories, but this is the first time that his work has been unflawed. In his earlier scripts, his plots have been more a showplace for his ideas than a display of any tangible or complex storyline. This film, however, is a great equilizor of sorts. He balances the innovativeness of his ideas without failing to deliver on story. He has solved the problem all experimental filmmakers face- and in doing so, he has made a film that is new, and original, and doesn't alienate the audience or become weighed down with it's pretentions.

This script aside, the film is remarkable, aesthetically. Gondry, well know for his videos and shorts, puts together all of the components of the script masterfully, and is, in fact, the best orchestrated of any Kaufman's scripts. Under Gondry's direction, the end product is both beautiful and timeless.