7 Comedians Who Have Successfully Gone Dark

5) Jim Carrey – Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

The film itself is an extraordinary accomplishment in both story-telling and filmmaking, and Jim Carrey in one of the lead roles is a revelation. Though the actor flexed his dramatic muscles in 1998’s The Truman Show, that film still required him to be larger-than-life and operatic at times. In Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, however, his portrayal of love-lorn Joel Barish is so tender and exacting that we get a real sense that this is a glimpse of the man behind the overly expressive mask.

Joel meets and falls in love with Clementine Kruczynski – who is the type of free-spirited person that constantly has to remind everybody that she is a free-spirited person. Neither of them realise, however, that they have actually met before, and had a two year, tumultuous relationship.

In reality, their relationship gradually broke down, and Clementine secretly used a company – Lacuna Inc. – to perform a procedure upon her that erases specific people and relationships from the memory. When he discovers that Clementine has undergone this procedure, he books himself in for the same, but changes his mind in the midst of the erasure.

For a large part of the film, we see Joel and Clementine inside Joel’s mind, as he desperately tries to salvage his recollections of their time together. His increasing panic is heart-wrenching to watch, and we learn a great deal about his character through the situations that arise in his subconscious. As they ultimately realize what they have done in submitting themselves for this memory wipe (which includes Clementine leaving herself vulnerable to manipulation by a Lacuna Inc. technician), they debate whether to try their relationship again, in spite of the risk that they might make all the same mistakes again.