Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

"I wish I had stayed, too. NOW I wish I had stayed. I wish I had done a lot of things. I wish I had... I wish I had stayed. I do."


Eternal Sunshine is a movie that I cannot seem to get out of my head. Ever since I watched it for the first time at least a year ago I have shuffled it around in my mind, trying to understand what this movie really means. I found it at Best Buy for 9 bucks and I picked it up. Saturday night I watched it again, and it finally clicked.


It is a simplistic story. Joel and Clementine meet and fall in love, but one day Joel discovers that- on an impulse- Clementine has had him removed from her memory using a new medical procedure. In the midst of emotional confusion, Joel decides to erase Clementine as a way out of the pain she has caused him.


We then travel inside Joel's head as he realizes the mistake he has made in erasing Clementine, and as his memories slowly fade he tries his hardest to save them before they're gone forever.


This movie has a very strange pacing. We jump back and forth through time and we witness Joel's memories of Clementine as they travel backwards to the first day they met. Therefore, on one's first viewing of this movie you are left trying to put the film in chronological order, and don't give much thought to the films themes. On my second viewing, because I had the time line in order, I was able to pay less attention to the plot and put more focus on what was happening thematically.


While this film is a love story, and a wonderful one at that, it is also an examination of the importance of relationships and the affect they have on us as humans. As we witness Joel's memories of Clementine being erased, at first we think he is right to do it as the latter part of their relationship is quite ugly, but as we retreat farther back we (and Joel) realize that the good heavily outweighs the bad.

For him, his relationship with Clementine actually affects who he is. We can see through his memories that time has worn him down and made him withdrawn, and in a very subtle way when he is with Clementine she slowly pulls him out of his shell. She leaves an imprint on him, as he decides to do something impulsive by skipping work and heading to the beach. This is after Clementine is erased. He has forgotten who she is, but the ways in which she affected him still remain. And when they're reunited with one another after they've forgotten they ever met, their feelings for each other remain. I suppose the film's tagline is true: "You can erase somebody from your head, but not from your heart."

After I watched this movie on Saturday, I was so emotionally overwhelmed by everything this film was saying that I almost lost it. It has always frustrated me when people say that they wish they could go back and erase or change the way something happened. Our memories are some of the most important things we have. They can give us a moment of happiness when times are hard by allowing us to reflect on happier times, memories shape reasoning for decisions we may have to make, and most importantly they help us remember our past shortcomings. They help us to keep from making those same mistakes again.

Joel and Clementine's relationship was not a mistake. In ways that the two of them may not have even understood, they affected each other. Human relations, be it a boyfriend and girlfriend, two friends, two co-workers, two enemies or a parent and a child, all affect us in some manner. Every person that we have extensive relationship with affected our lives. Even if we may not notice and see a person as scenery. Even if it ends nastily, we should never regret interactions we've had with other people. It's the relatability of this film to all people that make it so great.

I don't think I'll ever be able to stress that enough.

One of the most powerful films of our decade and maybe even of all time.



"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."