Once upon a time, this was my favorite movie. I was single
then, and I hadn’t really had any meaningful, long-lasting relationships up to
that point. But Eternal Sunshine made me feel as if I had been through one, bringing out complex emotions I didn’t know were even
there. It made me understand a bit more about the way life works, that conflict
is a necessary part of our psyche, and to cherish the good times as well as the
bad. It also somehow made me yearn nostalgically for my younger self, even
though I was in my 20s when I first saw it, because I wanted to reconnect with
all my happiest childhood memories.
As with all Charlie Kaufman movies, the story of Eternal
Sunshine plays off an original idea that’s meant more as a subject of
discussion than a streamlined story. Here, he posits the question: what if you
could erase painful memories? Instead of turning the question into something
dreary, like getting rid of memories of bullying or abuse, he turns to
relationships and walks us through the mind of Joel (Jim Carrey) as he gets the
memories of his ex-girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) systematically erased.
There are some side plots involved, which interconnect with Joel’s story, but
the emphasis is on Joel and his memories overlaid with how he feels about them
being erased as it’s happening. Each memory acts as an encapsulated moment,
with the most recent scenes of bitterness between the couple erased first. As
he slowly goes back in time to when they first met, his unconscious mind saddens
to the fact that he’s now completely losing the girl he used to love, asking
himself, through the projected image of his ex, if he could simply live in the
good moments, not wanting to get rid of them at all.
After the procedure—spoiler alert—the two meet up again in a
clever bit of fractured storytelling, where they meet at the beginning of the
movie, only for you to find out that their meeting occurred after both lovers had
their memories erased. Clementine, dating the guy who helped erase Joel’s
memories and takes advantage of them to get in with her, realizes that you
can’t fake love, and falls for Joel all over again (though it’s not really as
cheesy as it sounds, the two are somewhat distraught about finding out they
once knew each other very intimately). It’s got a clear message that no matter
how imperfect the relationship is, it’s still worth having and holding onto
your memories of it.
It’s Joel’s memories that impact the viewer most and tether
everything together, though. I haven’t seen the movie in years, yet I can still
recall images of the house where he first met his ex-girlfriend disappearing
from him, slowly crumbling as he accepts that it’s likely the last time he’ll
ever see her again. The way these scenes
are shot is so earnest, with two people who just enjoy being together, like
kids in a playground. The camera rarely focuses on anything other than the two throughout these sequences,
making everything around them dreamlike, as one room blends into another,
slowly peeling away the memories and smoothly fading into the most intimate and
happiest moments they had together. Joel’s memories are disconnected and surreal but so clear and vibrant. As an audience,
you can’t help but feel sad for his misguided choice to get rid of them, just
as he tries as hard as he can to hold on.
Eternal Sunshine would be a worthwhile movie if it merely
showed what happened to the people involved in Joel’s and Clementine’s mind
wipe. But filming Joel’s memories give it something that many movies tend to skip over:
strong, relatable human emotion. It’s too bad Jim Carrey never received any
recognition for this movie, because it’s a unique performance, the type that
is extremely hard to come by in mainstream movies (I’m happy that Kate Winslet earned a nomination at the very least). These two characters seem to
honestly love each other, and the movie takes the time and effort to show you
why they do, creating intense memories of the type that most everyone has
stored deep in their head. It’s like listening to a song where you don’t even have
to know the lyrics; the music just makes you feel a certain way. And even
though it makes me sad whenever I see this movie, it’s the kind of memory I don’t
soon want to forget. 
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