Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: The Sun Is Shining

Did you think I forgot about this? Wow, way to start off with a really bad pun. Anyway, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a philosophical science fiction tale disguised as a romantic comedy (I'm serious, many reviews have labeled it as a romantic comedy despite the fact that calling it a comedy is a complete stretch of the term, and the film contains absolutely zero tenets of the romantic comedy). And I want to warn you now that while I try to keep my personal life out of my posts, one of the reasons I've been thinking about this movie recently is that, currently, I am of the mindset that love fucking sucks.

This isn't Jim Carrey's first dramatic role (I think that was The Truman Show), but of all the ones I've seen, it is far and away his best. He plays Joel, a shy, timid, and soft-spoken man who, for no reason at all, decides to skip work one day and go to the beach... in the middle of winter. The only other person there is a woman with blue hair (it's colored hair; she is not a blue-haired old lady), and he runs into her in a few places throughout the day, before she finally introduces herself to him on the train home. She is Clementine, and she is Joel's total opposite. She is loud, socially aggressive, and speaks her mind. The pair begin a relationship and they look like they are meant to be together forever.

Things turn sour, though, and a few days before Valentine's Day, Joel tries to patch things up between them, only to find that Clementine doesn't seem to know him at all. He learns that she went to a clinic called Lacuna, which uses a special device to erase memories of traumatic events and situations. Clementine had her relationship with Joel erased, and this causes Joel to decide to have the same thing done to himself.

Most of the movie takes place in Joel's mind, as the memories slowly get erased. We see Clementine become fuzzy and landscapes disappear as Joel's subconscious awaits the peace of mind that will come from no longer remembering this emotionally abusive relationship. But then a memory is brought up that is not only good, it is wonderful. Joel and Clementine were not meant to be, but they had more than a few nearly perfect moments. They truly did love each other, but they couldn't make it work. When they were good together, though, they were very good. Joel begins to realize that losing his memories of Clementine mean losing all the good times he had with her as well. Joel's mind soon tries to fight the process and save his remaining memories of Clementine.



The movie examines the worth of our memories, and lets viewers read into the idea as deeply or as shallowly as they want. To some, this is nothing more than a tragic love story, but there is so much more going on below the surface. The idea that we could remove painful and traumatic memories sounds like a good idea at first, but the movie points out how dangerous it can be without ever explicitly stating the idea. For one thing, it is likely that, especially with lost loved ones, there would be plenty of good memories entwined with the bad. There is a shot of a woman in the clinic who is going to get the memory of her dead dog erased. Sure, losing a pet (let alone losing a loved one) hurts like hell when it happens, but to erase their death also erases their life, and all the good times you had together.



But more importantly, our memories make up who we are. We learn from our mistakes, and become stronger when we deal with pain. We know what to do and what not to do based on what we have done, and our experiences shape our lives. Eternal Sunshine certainly showed us the consequences of having memories erased, but two deleted scenes from the film really hammered the point home:

(SPOILER ALERT)

Mary the Lacuna receptionist had her memory of her affair with her boss erased, but what was removed from the film told us that she also removed the memory of having an abortion. Without these memories, she once again made passes at her married boss.

And the original ending showed us Joel and Clementine repeatedly falling in love, ending badly, erasing themselves, and repeating.

This movie is very layered, but it is an incredible experience if you are willing to think along with it. The only caveat is that it is extremely depressing; this isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but if you are not in the mood for this movie, it will knock the spirit out of you. But as I said, it is an incredible work of filmmaking and will have you rethinking the pain in your life.

Up next: Eternal flame...