Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

In Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the film focuses on a dysfunctional relationship between Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski. In the film, a memory erasing procedure is introduced in which anyone can undergo this process and erase whoever they want from their lives to lessen their pain. Joel discovers that Clementine decided to go through this after a fight between them and he impulsively wants to do the same. As the doctors show up to his house and begins to operate on his brain, Joel begins to regret his decision and wants to desperately cling onto the memories of Clementine in his life. He shows his viewers that despite his unhappiness with Clementine, the memories that they had once made him happy too. Solomon says, “Love is “a process – not just a feeling – of discovery, of development, of growing together” (Solomon, 1988, p. 82) and this film demonstrates that creating memories is one of the important aspects in the process of the development of love.

        In the beginning, it was confusing because as watchers, we do not realize that the opening scene is just a memory of the first encounter between Joel and Clementine. Joel starts an entry after two years and remembers nothing about ripping out pages from his journal. Joel tells us that it is Valentine’s Day and describes it as a holiday to make people feel like crap. While he is at the diner, he makes eye contact with Clementine and writes “Why do I fall in love with every woman I see who shows me the least bit of attention?” Clementine appears again when Joel is at the train platform and she waves to him. Eventually they begin a conversation on the train and they discover that they are going the same destination. As the movie continues, we start to see that Joel is in the process of erasing his memory of Clementine. The memories are a development of their relationship. They start off as a simple and happy couple, just like how every relationship usually is. Some people can describe is the honeymoon phase. Joel offers to drive her to her apartment and Clementine apologizes for being so “nutso” so she invites him to have a drink at her apartment. Clementine starts telling him that he is nice and predicts that she will “marry him” which makes Joel uncomfortable so he ends up leaving but once he gets home, he calls Clementine. They make another date and as the movie continues, we see that the happy couple becomes bitter. There are multiple memories of Joel and Clementine arguing over little things. One memory is when Clementine talks about having a baby and Joel just does not think they are ready. They proceed to get into an argument with Clementine saying she will be a good mother and Joel is just not ready to commit. “But love necessarily involves a kind of tension, a deep but often invisible conflict between romantic and practical sensibilities (Solomon, 1988, p. 86).” Although, Joel fell in love with Clementine’s spontaneity and quirkiness, they also had to think about their future as well. Could they keep living by going on adventures and not worry about anything or do they have to face reality one way or another?