by MATTHEW HAYS

As single people who are navigating the wonderful world of dating like to point out, there's good crazy and bad crazy. In moviemaking terms, I think Mel Gibson falls into the latter category. But Charlie Kaufman, the screenwriter behind such cult oddities as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, undoubtedly earns the mantle of good crazy.

And it's pleasing to report that Kaufman's unique brand of insanity remains intact with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, his latest collaboration. Here, a perfectly cast Jim Carrey plays a geeky onscreen version of Kaufman (having met the screenwriter, I'm struck that Carrey is really just doing an impersonation of him), desperately lonely and unable to look women he doesn't know in the eye.

He's soon smitten with Kate Winslet, who's another social misfit/nutjob. Their match seems to be one made in heaven, until Winslet mysteriously bails on the bond. Carrey learns that she's had the memory of him erased with the help of a special scientific procedure (conducted by a mysterious doc played by Tom Wilkinson). But something goes awry during the reworking of Carrey's memory, and he and Winslet are left leaping through his various life memories, attempting to work out whatever it was that tore them apart.

Kaufman's talent is his ability to get truly weird while still grounding us in endearing characters. Carrey's is a likable misfit, while Winslet is always a pleasure to watch. Eternal Sunshine reminded me of Kaufman's last collaboration with director Michel Gondry, the wildly underrated and underseen Human Nature. Again, here Gondry is technically adept at bringing his screenwriter's wacky vision to life - full of visual flourish and briskly edited, the film inherently makes the argument that not all CGI has to be used for empty purposes.

Thank God for film types like Kaufman and Gondry. They allow us to really submerge ourselves in something different. A sort of antidote, if you will, to the banality of someone like Gibson.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind opens Friday, March 19

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