Tossed in Translation

If you have ever made a habit of renting videos at a video store, chances are you have been duped by promotional material. An arguably funny/scary/tender moment from the movie is featured on the DVD jacket, and based at least in part on this featured moment, you rent the movie, only to discover that the rest of the movie has very little to do with the featured moment and is in fact total crap. Abroad, in translation, this phenomenon sometimes works in reverse: whether as a result of calculated marketing or sheer clumsiness, a masterpiece may be presented as total crap. Take Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for example. Here in Spain the title (¡Olvidate de Mi!) translates as Forget About Me!, which title, especially if we consider the puckish exclamation point, suggests this might be a good family movie, wherein a group of likeable folks overcome a series of small challenges in an amusing and mildly poignant manner, and then go on to live satisfactorily ever after. However much that kind of story might earn in grosses, it is probably safe to say it would not win an Oscar for Best Original Script, which Oscar Eternal Sunshine… did win, in 2005.

Moving on to our cast. This headshot of Jim Carrey looks to have been pulled not from Eternal Sunshine… but from one of the Ace Ventura installments. His hair is so clean, his face so closely shaven, his grin so charming… he’s the goofy-but-cute guy-next-door nobody can seem to forget because he’s so goofy-but-cute and lives right next door. That is to say, the man pictured on the cover is nothing at all like Eternal Sunshine’s Joel, a shambling wreck of a man in the throes of a mental breakdown.

Said breakdown has a lot to do with Kate Winslet’s Clementine. Quirky and capricious, Clementine has a penchant for dying her hair rowdy colors: it’s Smurf-blue one moment, pumpkin-orange the next. On this DVD jacket her hair color looks more or less natural, or at least L’Oreal sanctioned. Her aspect here suggests not an imaginative and adventurous individual, but a dewy-eyed girl-next-door trying to be strong and independent despite her longing for a goofy-but-cute guy-next-door who wants her to forget about him.

Next, Elijah Wood. Here in Forget About Me!, he might be the mischievous-but-harmless younger brother (or elf) who has a thing or two to learn about growing up — which thing or two he will learn by overcoming a series of small challenges in an amusing and mildly poignant manner. If you’ve seen Eternal Sunshine… you know that Wood’s character, Patrick, is anything but harmless. He’s more like an extremely creepy, borderline-psychotic stalker. If there is a moment in the movie when he smiles like this — ingenuously — I cannot find it.

It’s true Kirsten Dunst smiles and laughs in this film, but only when she’s stoned out of her gourd. Here she looks less like a twenty-something pot-hound than a seventy-something matriarch, cheery and young at heart and having a thing or two to teach about life, which thing or two she will teach by way of presenting a series of small challenges to her progeny, who will overcome them in an amusing and mildly poignant manner and then go on to live satisfactorily ever after.

Maybe there’s something to all this. Maybe the jacket design could serve as a kind of Trojan horse whereby a standard, typical audience might discover a thoroughly atypical film. More likely, the standard, typical audience will want a refund. And rightly so. This is false advertising. Exceptionally false. If you’ve seen the movie, you know Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is not for the DVD player in the family minivan. If you haven’t seen the movie, you ought to. Incoherent promotional material notwithstanding, it is a gem.

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Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.