Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 4K UHD Review (Patreon)

Video

Kino's disc represents Eternal Sunshine as shot, backed by a new 4K master. It's not that invigorating. Dull detail at best reaches a middling peak. Blame that on what looks like excessive processing, keeping the grain low and mushy. This doesn't look natural. Look at Elijah Woods' first appearance - grain sticks to his face. Other suggestions as to the issues include color, poor gradients abound, including on flesh tones. Facial detail disappears as a result.

Other elements are clearly natural to Eternal Sunshine, photographed like a shaky home movie. Ringing and halos on contrasting surfaces common and frequent. Grain spikes look akin to 16mm via the rougher film stock. The encode itself appears fine.

New color grading (and Dolby Vision) toys with the decidedly early '00s palette, digital blues and oranges plain. Dusty black levels mirror the intent from a lesser film stock, and highlights make almost no gains from this format. There's little to no visual zest to see.

Audio

DTS-HD 5.1 gives the score prominence, elevating the quieter dialog scenes to give them additional heft and meaning. Eternal Sunshine carries boldness unusual to a low-key romance, even as the soundstage stays wholly plain otherwise. Carrey's voice will swirl around the room as he goes through the memory process, sweeping through the rears rapidly.

Bass isn't a factor outside of a few loose moments during memory sequences.