Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a Realistic Love Story.
Comprehending Culture
Maybe it is difficult to believe, but Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) is a great movie because it is a realistic love story. Although the basic premise of the movie is impossible — a company named Lacuna, Inc. (which means gap, like a gap in memory) is able to selectively wipe the memory of someone/something from your mind — each of the characters in the movie are complex.
This makes Eternal Sunshine surreal — it is fantasy grounded in psychological realism. The manipulation of the physical in the movie is representative for themes in the abstract. That is to say that the impossible premise is meant to illustrate a unifying theme about the imperfection of memory that connects each of the main characters.
Not to mention, the movie won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and it is sometimes considered a “cult movie.” The moniker “cult movie” is often used to deride movies for having a cliquish and elitist following that is not, necessarily, representative of the quality of the movie. “Cult movie” has the same negative connotations as the word “hipster.” However, Eternal Sunshine’s appeal transcends a niche audience.
In his review of the movie, for example, movie critic Roger Ebert remarked,
Kaufman’s mission seems to be the penetration of the human mind. His characters journeyed into the skull of John Malkovich, and there is a good possibility that two of them were inhabiting the same body in Adaptation. But both of those movies were about characters trying to achieve something outside themselves. The insight of Eternal Sunshine is that, at the end of the day, our memories are all we really have, and when they’re gone, we’re gone.
His positive review can be seen in contrast to a review from Cole Smithey who published on his website that,
Although some audiences will be captivated by the now familiar American stereotype of a condescending bipolar female character, it’s Winslet’s incarnation of Clementine as a mentally volatile manipulator of weakness that makes the movie icky and distasteful. Poised as a romantic comedy, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind is rarely funny and disintegrates into utter abstraction during its overlong running time.
However, Smithey’s review does not really acknowledge the content of the movie so much as build ad hominems against Kaufman, Gondry, Winslet, or Carrey. These logically-fallacious reviews can, of course, be taken with a grain of salt, but two of his points should be examined.
One point Smithey makes is that “Eternal Sunshine… disintegrates into utter abstraction during its overlong running time.” However, this is simply untrue. The movie is demonstrative of tight, clear storytelling that has a clever structure and theme to it. The movie begins the way it ends, and every shot that seems out-of-place upon first viewing is shown upon subsequent viewings to have significance within the overall vision of the work.
Smithey’s other main point is about the unlikability of the main characters and their performances. He writes,
It’s Winslet’s incarnation of Clementine as a mentally unstable manipulator of weakness that makes the movie icky [and] Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, and Tom Wilkinson give superfluous performances to Jim Carrey’s honest effort at representing a dependent male character (read submissive) at the end of his rope.
However, I don’t think this is true. The characters are supposed to be imperfect. The depiction of these imperfect main characters is useful for its viewers because it shows both the pleasurable and difficult sides of love. Because of this, it helps us accept the imperfections of someone else in order to build and maintain long-term relationship(s). We are more likely to consider and address the way we place too high of ideals in front of others if we can see and empathize with imperfect characters before us on the screen. It shows that we are not alone in our imperfections and wanting to improve upon them. The value and purpose of art, in other words, is about empathy, and Eternal Sunshine succeeds in that purpose.
In addition, there are many other aspects of the movie to enjoy and contemplate. It has a unifying, circular structure to its narrative demonstrative of themes of memory and time; it is not solely a dramatic movie — it contains both drama and comedy; and it showcases the do-it-yourself special effects of director Michel Gondry and the cerebral screenwriting of the geek hero of movies, Charlie Kaufman. Also, because of the foreshadowing and complexity throughout the movie, it is still as enjoyable upon subsequent viewings.
Complex characters are developed in Eternal Sunshine through revealing characteristics of their psychology. To start, most of the movie takes place within the mind of Joel Barish (played by Jim Carrey) before and after Valentine’s Day in Long Island, New York. The surreal style of having part of the setting within the psychology of the protagonist allows viewers to understand the way Joel thinks and feels. The movie begins with a stream-of-consciousness of thought from within the mind of Joel.
He is lying in bed at the time of what is later revealed later to be the morning after undergoing Lacuna, Inc.’s procedure done by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (played by Tom Wilkinson), Stan Fink (played by Mark Ruffalo), Patrick (played by Elijah Wood), and Mary Svevo (played by Kristen Dust). Joel is shown to be both introverted and awkward as well as endearing and sweet. Both his negative aspects and positive aspects are portrayed in Eternal Sunshine, and he is a foil to the impulsive, free-spirit of Clementine Kruczynski (played by Kate Winslet).
For instance, he is shown to be shy when he leaves Clementine alone at the house on the beach at Montauk on the day they first meet. Upon reflection of the memory as his mind is being wiped by Lacuna, he says he thought that maybe Clementine was a “nut,” and that he walked out the front door because he “felt like a scared little kid.” In retrospect, he adds that if he could do it over, he would have stayed. That Clementine was not crazy but “exciting.” It was exciting that Clementine hopped into the house through the window, and opened the door for Joel, saying “Nobody’s coming here tonight. Believe me,” and that “It’s our house… just for tonight.”
Clementine’s adventurous spirit brought out a feeling of vitality in Joel. It complemented and challenged his shyness. Joel is also shown to have positive aspects brought out in him after the night he and Clementine go up to the frozen Charles River. The morning after when Joel is driving Clementine back to her house, he begins saying, “I-I had a really nice time last night,” but Clementine pushes him to expand past “nice,” and he revises his comment, saying, “I had the… best night in my entire… life!”
Furthermore, there is the memory shown when Joel goes to Barnes and Noble, where Clementine works, to ask her out the night after he leaves her at the house on the beach at Montauk. Clementine says, “You did run away, after all,” and Joel says, “I just needed to see ya…” and that he just wanted to “take” her “out or something.” Clementine gives her speech to Joel then, saying,
Look, man, I’m telling you right off the bat I’m high maintenance, so I’m not gonna tiptoe around your marriage… or whatever it is you’ve got going there. If you wanna be with me, you’re with me… Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a… girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. Don’t assign me yours.
Joel says, in retrospect, “I remember that speech really well” and that Clementine “had the whole human race pegged” and that he “still thought” Clementine was “gonna save” his “life, even after that.” He is shown to be a three-dimensional human being that both unintentionally places an ideal in front of Clementine that she is “gonna save” his “life,” but that he also accepts her imperfections for much of their two-year relationship that he later criticizes in the tapes recorded by Lacuna before both he and Clementine have each other wiped from their memories. He says on his tape, for instance, that “I couldn’t really talk to her about books, you know?” and that she only gets people to like her because she has sex with them.
Jim Carrey’s role as Joel Barish is also more serious and challenging than other roles he has had as a comic-relief character, such as in Dumb and Dumber (1994), Liar Liar (1997), and Bruce, Almighty (2003).
In fact, Carrey’s role as Joel is, arguably, his best acting performance yet. It is in Eternal Sunshine that Carrey is shown he is able to believably and skillfully tackle both dramatic and comedic parts. He does not act solely in cartoonish fashion, but with a sensitivity to the human condition that is emotionally believable. However, that is not to say that Eternal Sunshine is solely a work of serious drama; there is both humor and emotion in Eternal Sunshine. An example of the seriousness of Eternal Sunshine is Joel’s full spectrum of emotions portrayed after he realizes that Clementine wiped him from her memory after their two-year relationship. This is, for example, where the title sequence of the movie begins — with Joel crying as he drives after learning what Clementine has done.
For all its seriousness about the nature of love and loss, though, Eternal Sunshine also has a surreal, amusing sequence in the memory of Joel where he and Clementine hide from the wiping procedure of Lacuna within memories of Joel’s childhood. Clementine suggests “what if you take me somewhere else, somewhere where I don’t belong, and we hide there ‘til morning?” Next, Joel begins to remember a moment from his childhood, and rain permeates the current memory in which they are residing. He begins by recalling jumping in muddy puddles, dressed in yellow rain-gear as a child, singing, “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream.”
They end up in a memory of Joel’s childhood kitchen with Joel’s mom talking to Clementine as a family friend. Joel is under a table in the kitchen, dressed in pajamas, and he acts like himself as a child. Joel’s mom asks him as he is playing in his pajamas under the table, “Peanut, are you all right?” but Joel acts petulantly, wanting the complete attention of his mom, pouting that “she’s busy. She’s not looking at me… I want my mommy!” He is also physically shown to be smaller than Clementine in this scene, and, later, in another childhood memory, Joel and Clementine are being shown bathed in the kitchen sink by Joel’s mom, while she sings “Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh, my darling Clementine…” Also, child Joel says in this scene with the simple, instinctive satisfaction of a baby that “I love being bathed in the sink.” All in all, it is Jim Carrey’s most ambitious and challenging performance yet.
Clementine is also shown to be a complex foil to Joel. She is the impulsive, free-spirit. This is evident from Joel and Clementine’s meeting again at the very beginning of the movie when Joel skips work, lies about being sick when he calls in from the Long Island train station via payphone, and goes to the beach at Montauk, New York. He sees Clementine first on the beach, when he thinks, “If only I could meet someone new… I guess my chances of that happening are somewhat diminished, seeing that I’m incapable of making eye contact with a woman I don’t know.”
She is distinguished by her orange sweatshirt and her dyed-blue hair — the color that is learned later to be called Blue Ruin. These facets are characterizations of Clementine’s personality; her fashion itself is loud, which promises that she is an outgoing individual. For example, Clementine says when she moves to sit in the seat in front of Joel on the train, “I apply my personality in a paste,” referring to her Blue Ruin hair color as a characterization. And, not to mention, Clementine is the one to approach Joel for the first time, rather than the shy Joel approaching Clementine. For example, she waves at him at the train station, and she begins a conversation with Joel on the train on the way from Montauk to Rockville Centre. Clementine approaches Joel by saying “Hi” on the train, and Joel asks what she said, and she repeats, “I just said Hi.”
This is an inversion of the stereotype that the male character is supposed to chase the female love interest, and it is more accurately representative of Joel and Clementine’s personalities, that is to say it is indicative of a more realistic love story. Clementine is especially shown to be impulsive when she erases Joel from her memory without any notice. Carrie Eakin (played by Jane Adams), the wife of Rob Eakin (played by David Cross), says, “You know Clementine… She’s impulsive. She decided to erase you almost as a lark.”
The last memory that Joel has of Clementine, too, for instance, is that of them fighting after Clementine had gone out for the night, driven back tipsy, and dented Joel’s car. She says, “I kinda sorta wrecked your car,” and Joel calls her a “wino.”
In addition, she says to Joel out-of-the-blue when they are visiting the flea market, “I want to have a baby,” and Joel says that he wants to talk about it later.
But Clementine is complex; she is also shown to be anxious and endearing like Joel. She, in fact, says to Joel when they meet for the second time, “I mean, I’m always anxious, thinking I’m not living my life to the fullest.”
One memorable scene, too, is when Clementine confides in Joel that, when she was kid, she thought she was ugly. She begins her anecdote, saying, “Can’t believe I’m crying already. Sometimes I think people don’t understand how lonely it is to be a kid. Like you don’t matter… My favorite” doll that I had was “this ugly girl doll who I call[ed] Clementine… And I ke[pt] yelling at her: ‘You can’t be ugly! Be pretty!’” as if she could the make the doll into a better version of herself.
This vulnerable scene shows both how Clementine is not just a stereotype of the manic-pixie dream girl; she is a three-dimensional human being, just like Joel’s character. And she is a strong female character. This is most strongly shown in the scene where she gives Joel her speech that she is “just a girl… looking for her own peace of mind.”
It also demonstrates that even though Joel and Clementine are foils to each other that have potential for lots of conflict, they also complement each other in unexpected ways, providing the other with what they individually lack.
It is also one of the highlight performances of Kate Winslet’s career. Eternal Sunshine has, for instance, an even stronger female role and complex character than that of first-class ship passenger, Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic (1997).
Clementine is dressed, for instance, at the beginning of Eternal Sunshine in a way that is not stereotypically feminine — she is wearing an orange sweatshirt, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes that do not quite match each other. This is in contrast to the formal dress Winslet wears in Titanic when she first sees the poorer artist and third-class passenger, Jack Dawson (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). Winslet showed she was capable of acting through the whole spectrum of emotions in Eternal Sunshine.
The characters of Mary, Stan, Patrick, and Dr. Howard are also complex, too; they each have duplicitous elements to them that make them three-dimensional. Mary, for instance, is another strong and intricate female character like Clementine, albeit different in her own way. Mary works for Dr. Howard, but she is also in love with Dr. Howard, although she does not fully understand her history and relationship with him until the end of the movie. She is shown talking about Dr. Howard in an affectionate manner and hanging around him as long as possible at work, admiring him from afar, like when she looks back at him and waves when Joel comes in to ask about the card that says Clementine has wiped him from her memory.
She is shown to be a strong female character, too, such as when she makes the first move in the scene in Joel’s apartment when Dr. Howard comes over to help after there are complications while Stan, Patrick, and Mary are wiping Joel’s memory. She describes Dr. Howard as being “like a surgeon or a concert pianist or something,” and she calls him “such a sweetheart.”
Mary is shown to be vulnerable, too, near the end of the movie. She listens to the tape Lacuna kept of her explaining why she wants her memory wiped of her relationship with Dr. Howard before she undergoes the procedure. The tape begins when Dr. Howard says, “Okay, so just tell me what you remember.” Mary begins, saying,
“I liked you immediately… You didn’t come one to me at all. I liked that. I was so tongue-tied around you at first. I wanted you to think I was smart. I couldn’t wait to come to work. I had these fantasies of us being married…and having kids and… just… Oh, Howie, I can’t do this.”
And Dr. Howard comforts, “We agreed it’s for the best, Mary.” Because of her learning again about the history between her and Dr. Howard, she becomes a dynamic character. For example, she changes after she is seen believing ardently in the memory-wiping science that Dr. Howard has pioneered, even memorizing quotes about memory and time from a Bartlett’s quote-book, such as one from Fredrick Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil that goes: “Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better, even of their blunders.”
She visibly changes her belief in his memory-wiping science when she gives back the tapes and belongings that Lacuna had collected before patients’ procedure. She also leaves a standardized letter to customers that begins, “My name is Mary Svevo. We’ve met, but you don’t remember me. I worked for a company you hired to have part of your memory erased. I have since decided that this is a horrible…”
Stan, too, is a complex character. He is introduced as being one of the best technicians at Lacuna, Inc., but he is also shown to be vulnerable. For example, he reminds Mary that he likes her a lot when Mary moves out from living with him when she learns about her relationship history with Dr. Howard.
And, although ostensibly cool and professional at the beginning, when Joel goes off-the-map, Stan is shown how he reacts when he has to deal with an emergency situation. He says, “This is my… I can handle this,” but, at Mary’s order, he calls Dr. Howard in the middle of the night for help.
Furthermore, Stan is in love with Mary, which leads to him being a part of a love triangle with Dr. Howard, and he is shown having to deal with that difficulty, too, like when Hollis walks up to him and starts hitting him after witnessing Dr. Howard and Mary becoming intimate in Joel’s apartment.
Patrick, too, is a complex character. He is ostensibly the innocent character, but it is quickly shown that he is meddling, such as when he reveals that he fell in love with Clementine the night that Lacuna performed the procedure on her, and he stole a pair of her panties from her apartment.
After that, he begins following in the footsteps of Joel by obtaining and searching through the bags of belongings Joel had turned into Lacuna that were related to memories of Clementine. He also leaves a message on Clementine’s answering machine after she meets Joel again for the second time, saying, “I feel like you’re mad at me, and I don’t know what I did,” and Clementine blocks out his voice by repeating, “La-la-la-la-la.”
Patrick ends up losing Clementine to Joel after they meet for the second time.
Dr. Howard is another complex character. Near the beginning of the movie, he is shown to be the serious and rational doctor that is the mastermind behind the science of the memory-wiping procedure that Lacuna offers its patients. But, as the movie progresses, Dr. Howard is shown to have a complicated backstory, too. Mary’s love for Dr. Howard is foreshadowed throughout the movie, such as the scene when Stan and Mary are eating food laying down on the bed with the sedated Joel between them. Stan is talking about the punk band The Clash and Mary interjects when Stan says of The Clash, “It’s amazing, isn’t it? Like social justice…” Mary interjects, saying, “What Howard gives to the world. You look at a baby, and it’s so pure and so free and so clean. And adults are, like, this mess of sadness…”
When Stan calls Dr. Howard later and he drives over to Joel’s apartment to help, old feelings and forgotten history are resurrected. Suddenly, Dr. Howard is shown to be not simply a static character of a doctor that works all-day and lacks an interesting personal life. He is shown to be a character that has to deal with a history of past love every time he goes to work and has a conflict of feelings between his wife, Hollis, and Mary. After Mary recites the Alexander Pope quote that is eponymous of the movie’s title, Dr. Howard says, “I haven’t heard that one. It’s lovely.” Mary continues, saying, “I just thought it would be appropriate, maybe,” and then Mary moves closer to Dr. Howard and kisses him. Mary apologizes, saying, “I’ve loved you for a very long time… I shouldn’t have said that.” Dr. Howard responds, “It’s… You’re a wonderful girl. But I… You know, I have a wife and kids.”
Dr. Howard’s wife, Hollis, drives over to see Dr. Howard because she said that she had a feeling it was needed, and she sees Mary and Dr. Howard being intimate through Joel’s apartment window. Dr. Howard races out of the apartment and chases Hollis as she drives away. He pleads, “I came here to work. Hollis, this is a one-time mistake!” And Hollis replies, “Don’t be a monster, Howard. Tell the girl.” Dr. Howard then turns to the stoned and confused Mary, saying, “We have a history… I’m sorry. Y-You wanted the procedure.”
Eternal Sunshine also has a circular structure that becomes a metaphor for the themes of memory and time. The title, itself, is also at odds with the setting. Even though the movie is named Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind it predominantly takes place in the wintry, early-February locale of Long Island, New York — already there is seen to be a crack in the ideal of a sunny and spotless mind.
Furthermore, the movie begins as it ends and vice versa. These shifts in time during the non-linear narrative can be noted by four things: 1) the color of Clementine’s hair in any given scene of the movie, 2) whether Joel has the sharpie dots that Stan draws on his temples when he goes in to be prepped for Lacuna’s procedure, 3) when events are happening in relation to Valentine’s Day, and 4) what a character does and does not remember in any given scene. At the beginning of the movie when Joel skips work to take a train to Montauk, he notes that it is the morning of Valentine’s Day, so the viewer knows that it is after both Joel and Clementine have their memory wiped. Clementine’s hair is also dyed as Blue Ruin at the beginning of the movie, which she dyes that color after she has her memory erased.
She is shown to have dyed it Blue Ruin after the procedure in all the scenes with her and Patrick, such as when Joel discovers she does not remember him when he goes to visit her at work in Barnes and Noble before Valentine’s Day, which is after the night she dented his car. It is also shown to be Blue Ruin when Patrick and Clementine are driving around while Patrick is trying to comfort Clementine because she thinks that there is something wrong with her.
An example of the sharpie dots for telling the time of the movie is when Joel is walking back to his apartment on Valentine’s Day, and he stops to get the mail out of his apartment’s mail box. It is at this point the viewer can see the sharpie dots on Joel, and they are visible after he goes upstairs to take the pills that Lacuna prescribed him in order to sedate him for the procedure.
Events also circulate around Valentine’s Day, and the viewer can note whether a scene is happening before or after Joel and Clementine have their memory wiped — depending if it is before or during Valentine’s Day — such as the first scene of the movie when Joel wakes up and skips work to take a train to Montauk.
Lastly, time can be told in the movie by what characters do and do not remember in any given scene. For example, this is another way to understand the circular structure of the movie since Joel on the train not only does not remember Clementine, but he does not remember the song “Oh My Darling, Clementine” because later in the movie the childhood memories where his mom is singing that song to him are erased after he and Clementine try to hide there. The song is also representative of the theme and plot of the movie since, as Clementine sings the line on the train when she meets Joel again, “You were lost and gone forever/ Oh my darling, Clementine.”
She is named Clementine because it is the memory of her that Joel loses but that he later regains. Also, in Joel’s last memory that is wiped, Clementine tells Joel to “Meet me in Montauk.”
This leaves a kind of impulsive, Clementine-esque reminder in his mind the next morning during Valentine’s Day. And, not to mention, the scene that was used for the theatrical release movie poster (when they are laying on the ice of the frozen Charles River) is a memory they have already had, but they do not recall. Clementine’s hair is blue in that scene, indicative that she has already had her memory wiped. And there is a picturesque crack in the ice of the frozen Charles River — of course, that is a metaphor for a crack in memory.
The title of the movie is also significant for its theme. The title, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, ostensibly suggests that the movie is about the benefits of the fictional procedure that Lacuna offers; but it is just the opposite. The scene where the title is mentioned is, actually, demonstrative of the failures of the procedure; it shows that the procedure does not, necessarily, help customers get over their past loves or, even, to start again. The scene is when Mary and Dr. Howard are in Joel’s apartment together alone and late at night. Mary asks Dr. Howard, “Do you like quotes…?” and she goes to recite a line that Dr. Howard already knows. But he politely replies, “Oh no. It’s… It’s a good quote. I’m happy we both know it.” But Mary does not give up. She is enamored enough to try again, and, this time, recites the quote eponymous of the title. Mary says, “It’s by Pope Alexander, and it goes…” and Dr. Howard corrects her, saying, “Alexander Pope?” Mary is embarrassed, replying, “It’s just that I told myself not to say ‘Pope Alexander’ and sound like a dope, and then I go ahead and say it.” She finally continues, delivering the line:
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot?
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
Each prayer accepted and each wish resigned.
Dr. Howard responds, “I haven’t heard that one. It’s lovely,” and Mary goes on to move closer to him, kissing him, and setting in motion the series of events that leads to her learning again about their relationship history. Furthermore, there is the ending shot that repeats itself after hearing the subtle sound effect like that of a tape being rewound while the beginning lyrics of Beck’s song “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime” play, saying:
Change your heart
Look around you
Change your heart
It will astound you
Now, I need your lovin.’
This can be the final metaphor of the movie, indicative of the theme that the characters learn from the failures of the Lacuna procedure. The procedure is unnatural, and it does not help characters learn to, as Beck sings, “change your heart” in order to develop and maintain a long-term relationship. The procedure does not help them to accept the flaws of themselves and their significant other; it does not help them to really address their past. There is no so-called “eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”; it does not exist and, as the failure of the procedure shows, it does not work — at least, not very well into the long-term. The procedure, after all, is “brain damage,” as Dr. Howard says to Joel when he asks, but that it is “on par with a night of heavy drinking.”
And both Joel and Clementine decide at the end to try again and start over. Clementine leaves Joel’s apartment, and he, stretching himself out of his normal shyness, runs after her, saying, “Just wait. Just wait,” and she responds, “What do you want, Joel?” He says, “I don’t know. I want you to wait for… just a while,” and Clementine repeats her memorable speech that she’s “not a concept,” she’s “just a…girl who’s looking for” her “own peace of mind.” She adds, “You know, you will think of things, and I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped… because that’s what happens with me,” and Joel replies, “Okay,” indicative of both of them wanting to make the effort to start again.
Lastly, the movie is characterized by the do-it-yourself effects of director Michel Gondry and the heady screenwriting of Charlie Kaufman. A memorable example of Gondry’s special effects in Eternal Sunshine are the faces of individuals in Joel’s mind after a memory has been wiped. They appear with warped, blurred, or blank faces, alternatively resembling one of the “fooglilized” minions from Spy Kids (2001), or as if their facial features have been obscured from a stocking worn over their head.
There are the shots of a spotlight used while Clementine and Joel try to hide in Joel’s memory. The spotlight is used as a metaphor for the selective memory-wiping of the procedure. Also, the helmet that Joel has to wear for the memory-wiping procedure has an amateurish, arts-and-craftsy vibe to it, like Gondry acknowledging his delight as a story-teller on deliberately not placing the emphasis of the movie on the special effects, but the characters — as well as trying to hold onto a childlike wonder at what life has to offer. And there are many scenes where the blurring of the shot or the background is used as a metaphor for memory, such as when Joel is walking down the street at the beginning of the movie, or when Mary is listening to the tape of her speaking to Dr. Howard before she had the procedure.
Kaufman does the same thing. Although Kaufman has the ability to write above the heads of any audience, he chooses to write to the audience. He does this by developing emotionally believable, complex characters that, because of their humanity, become relatable for anyone. Simultaneously, there are ambitious ideas embedded into the narrative, such as that it is better to accept past memories and work to move forward, than it is to completely lose parts of an imperfect past.
Eternal Sunshine is a multifaceted and effusive movie that has an entire cast of complex characters, clever structure that becomes a metaphor for theme, amateurish-yet-endearing effects from director Michel Gondry and sincere-yet-imaginative writing from screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. It is useful because it reminds and shows us how imperfect we are in order to help us come to terms with our own and others’ short-comings.
Eternal Sunshine is unforgettable (unlike the relationships of the characters in the movie) as a realistic love story adorned with a flourish of imagination. The movie will change your heart, and that will astound you.
Sources
Ebert, Roger. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Rogerebert.com. RogerEbert.com, 19 Mar 2004. Web. 21 Feb 2016.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Dir. Michel Gondry. Perf. Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst and Elijah Wood. Focus Features, 2004. Film.
Smithey, Cole. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Colesmithey.com. ColeSmithey.com, 1 Jan 2009. Web. 21 Feb 2016.
