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For all its visual flair and madcap invention, The Science Of Sleep was always going to be Eternal Sunshine’s poor relation: a fanciful deluge of playful surrealism that desperately needed some of Charlie Kaufman’s intellectual heft and emotional heart. One year on, however, Michel Gondry proves his unhinged imagination can work its magic without the Adaptation scribe’s genius underpinning it - and all it took was Jack Black, a camcorder and a store full of erased videotapes.
Yes, videotapes – those clunky, bricks we used to collect in their hundreds in the days before DVD and Sky+. No wonder Danny Glover’s dilapidated rental outlet in New Jersey is doing such bad business, as hard as clerk Mike (Mos Def) works to entice new customers. Things look bleaker still when best pal Jerry (Black) – magnetised from an attempt to sabotage the local power plant – walks in and wipes every title. What to do? Why, shoot replacements, of course: off-the-cuff knockoffs full of improvised props, makeshift FX and scraps of half-remembered dialogue. No one will ever notice the difference – will they? Ironically, Mike and Jerry’s amateurish spins on Ghostbusters, Rush Hour 2 and the like prove so successful they’re soon working round the clock to satisfy demand.
It takes a special talent to wring so much warm, humane comedy out of such a screwy premise. But the real triumph is how Gondry uses it to champion no-budget indie filmmaking, salute cinema's unifying properties and thumb his nose at the Hollywood system. Bravo!
