Is there someone out there you’re destined to be with?
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND turns 20 this year
If you could erase your ex from your memory, would you do it?
Mind you, not just the “big” memories would vanish... Not just the life milestones. The small memories would vanish, too… The in-between moments you shared, profound in their mundanity, when nothing particularly exciting was happening to remind you of the statistical improbability of having been alive in the same time and place as your ex, of actually having found each other, however fleetingly.
The weight of her hand in yours, with the chronically chipped nail polish… The unruly tangle of his hair first thing in the morning… The funny sound they made when they were thinking... All of it, gone.
The uncertainty, confusion, and heartbreak would vanish.
But so would all of the happiness, big and small.
It’s hard to believe, but Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind turns 20 this year. Written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, the film’s a roller coaster ride that’s not exactly your traditional romantic comedy, as we’ll see!
On a desolate beach in Montauk, New York, Joel Barish - played by an understated Jim Carrey - bumps into Clementine, a “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” played by Kate Winslet, in a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. (Her character arguably perfected the archetype of a woman who “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures”).
The two fall in love. Clementine draws Joel out of his shell, and he cherishes their connection. At least, at first.
Almost immediately, the film forces us to wonder if we’re witnessing the beginning of the love story, or the end. It drops us into a nonlinear structure that suddenly and unapologetically seems to “skip ahead”, skimming the surface of painful memories, ultimately dumping us into the fallout of Joel’s and Clementine’s bitter breakup.
Joel feels like his life is a pale imitation without Clementine, so he decides to try and win her back - only to discover that, inexplicably, she doesn’t recognize him.
As it turns out, Clementine’s had her relationship with Joel erased from her memory.
Hurt, Joel decides to undergo the same procedure to obliterate Clementine from his past. Dr. Mierzwiak’s eccentric team swoops in to make it happen, throwing Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, and Kirsten Dunst together - what a cast!
The erasing begins, and Joel’s memories of Clementine start to vanish. As the space between waking and dreaming collapses, Gondry calls on his experience directing experimental music videos to pull us into the film’s nightmare.
Handheld camerawork creates a frantic feeling of immediacy that screams “this is really happening”. Many visual effects are accomplished practically; for example, film speeds, double exposures, and forced perspective are manipulated so that the chaos feels tactile and grounded. These may be memories, Gondry’s style suggests - imperfect, distorted - but the meaning and emotional weight of them are very real.
Joel realizes that he doesn’t want to lose his past with Clementine after all.
They run from memory to memory as if in a science fiction film, fleeing the work of the eraser. It’s visceral and scary, and it made me wonder what Alzheimer’s Disease feels like as it ravages the mind. Imagine having the vague feeling that you know someone, or that a place is familiar, but you can’t place it... Eventually, you lose the thread of your own story, unmoored from your past. Your sense of self starts to disintegrate.
We are our memories, the film seems to say. If we lose them, we lose ourselves.
The procedure is successful.
Joel’s memories of Clementine get erased, and neither one remembers the other.
And yet…
This is where the screenwriter in me gets excited. [Spoiler alert] The film’s nonlinear structure pays off - In a surreal climax, it’s revealed that Joel and Clementine first met at a beach party, implying that their meet-cute in Montauk happens after their procedures. In other words, the film’s opening is the end of their love story! But it’s also effectively a new beginning… They’re meeting for the first time, a second time.
I love the way that Joel’s and Clementine’s meet-cute in Montauk rhymes with their first meeting at the beach party. They say some of the same things to each other, and their actions follow the same script, as if they’re acting out the same story under slightly different circumstances. It’s as if they’re destined to be together.
For better or worse, they’ve been drawn inexorably back into each other’s orbit.
At the end of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Joel and Clementine discover the audio recordings they made before they underwent their memory wipes.
Joel hears Clementine’s reasons for leaving, and Clementine hears Joel’s. “He’s boring, is that enough reason to erase someone?”, Clementine asks. “I don’t like myself when I’m with him.” For his part, Joel claims that “The only way Clem thinks she can get people to like her, is to fuck her… She’s so desperate and insecure.”
Bitter, resigned, he admits to wondering who Clementine is at her core: "What a loss to spend that much time with someone only to find out that she's a stranger."
They don’t let these revelations stop them from trying to bridge the gap from stranger to partner once again. I adore this next scene; it moved me to tears:
CLEMENTINE: “I’m not a concept, Joel, I’m just a fucked-up girl who’s looking for my own peace of mind. I’m not perfect.”
JOEL: “I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you.”
CLEMENTINE: “But you will… And I’ll get bored of you, and feel trapped, because that’s what happens with me.”
JOEL: “Okay.”
CLEMENTINE: “Okay.”
Will they fall into the same patterns as before? Are they doomed to repeat the same death-spiral, or will it be different this time?
Recently, here in Nepal, I met a woman who told me about “The Red Thread of Fate”. It’s an East Asian belief with roots in Chinese mythology: Every soul on earth is tied to another soul, regardless of time, place, or circumstances.
The cord that connects them may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.
I can’t decide if that’s incredibly romantic or a killer concept for a horror movie. Because what if the soul you’re tied to is likely to bring you down?
And so I find myself reflecting on my own relationship history, which a friend of mine once half-jokingly described as “post-modern”.
I’m not 100% sure what he meant, but I think he was poking fun at the fact that my love life hasn’t exactly followed the trajectory of a traditional romantic comedy. When I first saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 20 years ago, something deep within me responded strongly, but I don’t think I’d lived enough life to fully appreciate it.
Well, this time around - two decades later - I don’t have that problem.
The film hit super fucking hard.
To try and make sense of my forays into romance over the years (good luck to me, right?), I’ve been reading a lot about attachment theory, which explores how humans form emotional bonds. Through that lens, the film plays like an illustration of the powerful push-and-pull dynamic of an Anxious/Avoidant relationship. I hope, for your sake, you have no idea what I’m talking about. But if you do, then this will be familiar:
In an especially vulnerable moment, Joel and Clementine spend a lazy morning in bed. “You don’t tell me things, Joel,” Clementine accuses. “I’m an open book. I tell you everything. Every damn embarrassing thing. You don’t trust me.”
To which Joel replies: “Constantly talking isn’t necessarily communicating.” This triggers Clementine: “I don’t do that. I want to know you. I don’t constantly talk! Jesus! People have to share things, Joel…” He musters a tired “Mmhm.”
The anxious partner (Clementine) craves closeness, connection, and clarity. The avoidant partner (Joel) craves autonomy and independence. Granted, their strengths complement their weaknesses, but they can also drive each other away... The avoidant partner withdraws, the anxious partner chases, and the roller coaster ride begins, unless both people have the self-awareness necessary to step off of it.
If you’ve ever been stuck in this trap, this death-spiral, then you know how fucked-up it can be… How imbalanced, destabilizing, and impossible it feels to escape.
Red Thread of Fate.
Romance or horror movie?
Charlie Kaufman has always been one of my favorite screenwriters because his films invite this sort of soul-searching. They’re often unflinchingly, painfully honest, and that sets them apart from a lot of the crap that’s out there.
It’s a steak dinner, not a cheap dessert.
“People are starving,” Kaufman once told a roomful of writers:
“They may not know it because they’re being fed mass-produced garbage. The packaging is colorful, and it’s loud. But it’s being produced in the same factories that produce Pop-Tarts and iPads. By people sitting around thinking, ‘What can we do to get people to buy more of these?’ And they’re very good at their jobs…
They’re selling you something. And the world is built on this now… And we’re starving, all of us, and we’re killing each other, and we’re hating each other, and we’re calling each other liars and evil, because it’s all become marketing, and we want to win. Because we’re lonely, and empty, and scared, and we’re led to believe winning will change all of that. But there is no winning.”
He goes on, with heartfelt advice that’s relevant to every creative:
“What can be done? Say who you are. Really say it, in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won’t be born for five hundred years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can’t help but be. But more importantly, if you’re honest about who you are, you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world, because that person will recognize him or herself in you. And that will give them hope.
Give that to the world, rather than selling something to the world. Don’t allow yourself to be tricked into thinking that the way things are is the way the world must work, and that in the end, selling is what the world must do.
Try not to. Do you. It isn’t easy, but it’s essential.
It’s not easy, because there’s a lot in the way. In many cases, a major obstacle is your deeply-seated belief that ‘you’ is not interesting. And since convincing yourself that you are interesting is probably not going to happen, take it off the table. Agree, ‘Perhaps I’m not interesting. But I am the only thing I have to offer. And I want to offer something. And by offering myself in a true way, I am doing a great service to the world, because it is rare, and it will help.’”
It sure has helped me.
What do you think of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?
I’m especially curious to hear what you make of the ending. Do you think history will repeat itself in Joel’s and Clementine’s relationship, or is there hope?
Heck, is it even worth the risk? Please let me know.
Man, it's been a minute since I've watched it but i'll have to give it another watch here soon. Loved your write up and the idea of The Red Thread of Fate, which I bet most of us have had someone in our lives that made us believe it's true.
Not a fan of the movie, but loved your write up about it!