SOURCE.

If Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was essentially a seamless movie, story and artistic vision cut from whole cloth, The Science of Sleep is a major step back for Michel Gondry—not an outright debacle along the lines of the director's earlier Human Nature, but nowhere near the accomplishment of his last film. Working from his own screenplay, which is perhaps the entire problem, Gondry presents a love story without any actual love or story—merely characters behaving absurdly against a dissonant, intermittently striking collage of his music video tropes—time slicing, stop-motion animation, oversized hands. It's a vision of cotton-cloud sunsets and yarn unicorns that never snaps into focus, despite the sincere and likable efforts of Gael García Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg as the would-be romantic leads. There's just enough to admire here to really regret the absence of a better film. Grade: C+