“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”
One of the most beautifully executed concept romance films of all-time.
I’ve only seen this once before when I was much younger and more naive and probably didn’t understand the messages of this film beyond simply the concept. But now I’m older and have experienced a serious relationship and have gone through things of my own and better understand movies and life and myself, so the themes and messages of this film have fallen into their place in my mind on a rewatch.
If I had to explain what I think this movie is trying to tell me, I’d say it like this:
We can try and try to erase someone from our brain, but in the end our heart will always remember the one our heart yearns for, even if it never worked and we never truly understood that person in their totality. And in order to see success in that relationship, even if that person is your perfect compliment, we must first encounter and embrace the deepest and darkest struggles that we encounter within ourselves and allow those things to shine through in our relationship, because there truly is no better way of understanding someone than traveling to the deepest corners of their mind and their heart and their memories.
Once we can see ourselves for all of what we are, not just what’s on the surface, but what holds us back and what we feel poorly about ourselves, and once we can show that to the person that we desire, then we can truly see each other for who we really are.
It takes courage to travel through our memories, searching for the most tormented moments of our lives, but isn’t it beautiful for us, as humans, to experience that torment? Isn’t it beautiful that we can look back on it and say that we were once that version of ourselves, but now we are so much different, yet still the same? That we are all just messed up people with messed up memories that are endlessly looking for validation to never feel that way again? Isn’t it so beautiful that to never feel that again, we have to accept that those memories are a part of who we are? And isn’t it beautiful that in order to show someone all of who you are, it’s required to show them those most tormented moments of our lives?
I just found it so horrifying that the biggest issue with Joel was that he never opened up, he never showed Clem any of his emotions, any of his past, or any of his thoughts. The horrifying part was that Clem’s first time ever seeing the parts of Joel that she so desperately desired was in a library of his memories while he was getting a procedure to erase her from his memory.
When they’re in the house, and Clem says “I wish you stayed” and Joel responds with “I wish I stayed,” that is one of the most telling statements throughout the whole movie that encapsulates the entire message. Obviously, they’re talking about how they wish that Joel stayed at the house that night with Clem, but also obviously, it is a metaphor for their whole relationship. Both of them wish they stayed with each other because, for some reason, whether it’s fate or destiny or an invisible string, they are tied together by who they are and their natural attraction and chemistry and love for one another. Yet, that relationship only grew into turmoil and struggle, yet both of them wished that they stayed. It poses this question, not just to them, but to everyone, of: if you knew that a relationship wasn’t going to work, would you still do it?
The ending of this movie perfectly captures the answer that I feel a lot of people would have, which is yes. Undoubtedly, you and that person are brought together for a reason, regardless of the outcome, so why wouldn’t you do it. Because, amidst all of that struggle that we see between the two, there was still plenty of love and respect for one another. And more importantly, there was learning and there was growth, not necessarily in the moment, but rather when the two are reliving and observing the memories. Obviously when they are experiencing their hardships together, they didn’t want to stay together and even went as far as erasing each other from their memory. But after journeying through those memories, and their own individual memories, all of a sudden they see their own guilt, their own individual failures, their own personal battles that maybe could have made the relationship work.
That is one of the most haunting things about relationships is that we never know the outcome, and we can look back all we want and blame the other person or blame yourself, but it’s not until you look at yourself outwards looking in will you find the answers for having success in the future. And Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind captures just that through a haunting concept that effortlessly integrates with a deceptively real and compelling relationship that poses many questions about personal identity and the complexities of relationships.
