Eternal Sunshine On The Spotless Mind (2004)

Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, David Cross

First, The Lowdown: A romantic comedy told a la Philip K. Dick.

“Where are all the good men dead? In the heart or in the head?”

Meet Joel. He wakes up on a typical Valentine's Day depressed and alone. To fit with his already desolate state, he notices that a huge gash has been cut into the door panel of his car. While waiting for his morning commute, Joel decides to take a train to the beach and ditch work. Joel doesn't consider himself to be an impulsive person, but the desperation in which he forces his way to the other platform and onto the train makes gives the impression that something important is inspiring him. Opening up his journal to record some random thoughts, he notices that the last two year's entries have been torn out – an act that Joel doesn't remember doing.

Meandering at the beach, Joel sees a woman in orange looking out at the surf. However, his withdrawn nature prevents him from talking with her. At the coffee shop, Joel sees the same woman sitting down a ways from him and watches her slip a bit of booze into her coffee. Waiting for the return train, Joel sees the very same woman in orange heading the same way. On the way back, she strikes up conversation with him, she vaguely recognizes him as a customer at her bookstore. Her name is Clementine, and warns Joel not to joke about her name, but Joel doesn't know any references to it. (The song “My Darling Clementine” is a complete blank to him.) Their conversation ambles along, but when Joel refers to Clementine as “nice”, she closes up. It turns out that Clementine is about as out of sorts today on Valentine's Day as Joel.

Joel drives Clementine back to her apartment and she invites him upstairs for a drink. They talk more which emphasizes how quiet and reserved Joel is with how outgoing and random Clementine is. The next evening, Clementine takes Joel to the Charles – a frozen lake just off of a local highway, and they talk more. Clementine sleeps on the drive back, an all-night affair, and asks Joel if she can sleep over at his place. While Joel waits in his car, a young man knocks on his window and asks why he's there. Joel tells him that he's just waiting. The man walks away, leaving Joel confused.

Now pretend you didn't just read that.

Rewinding back to the day before Valentine's Day, Joel is driving in his car, crying with the forlorn determination of someone who's been thrust into the frontier of solitude. Unknown to him, he is being followed by two men in a van. At the mailboxes, he runs into Frank, a next door neighbor. Frank complains that the only Valentine's Day cards he gets are from his mother and envies Joel for having a Clementine as a girlfriend. Joel notes a letter by Lacuna Inc. and goes up to his apartment. He dresses in a new pair of pajamas and takes a prescription he just purchased. Finally turning off his lights, he passes out on the floor. Seeing the lights turned out, the men in the van, Stan and Patrick, break into Joel's apartment, dragging armloads of equipment with them.

As Joel sleeps, he dreams about the conversation he just had with Frank about Clementine – but it's like watching a badly focused movie which gets even more out of focus until it fades to black. When the scene comes back, Joel is having a conversation that he with his friends, Rob and Carrie, only a few days prior. It turns out that he has been dating Clementine for quite a while, but the relationship imploded on itself when Clementine came home drunk after putting a gash into Joel's car. With Valentine's Day looming, Joel tries to call Clementine, but her phone number is changed. Still wanting to seek resolution, Joel buys an early Valentine's Day gift for her and swings by her workplace – at Barnes & Noble's. However, Clementine not only is there with another (and younger) man, but acts like she doesn't recognize Joel. Distraught, he relays this to his friends and Carrie tries to assure him that he needs to see this as a sign to move on. Rob, however, pulls an envelope from a drawer from Lacuna Inc. In it is a card that states: “Clementine Kruczynski has had Joel Barish erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again.” Clementine's name fades from the card.

Lacuna Inc. is a service that erases memories of a relationship from a person's mind. Joel was not supposed to see the notice from their office. Dr. Mierzwiak, who invented the process, informs Joel that their files are confidential (so he cannot provide him with evidence) and that Clementine wanted to move on. By undergoing their treatment, she has purged Joel from her memory. Rob and Carrie are not surprised by that decision, however, given Clementine's tendency for exuberance. Now feeling completely left in the lurch, Joel insists to have the procedure done on himself. The first thing that is required is that Joel has to collect everything that reminds himself of Clementine – books, journal entries, photos, clothes, books, CDs, etc. Lacuna will then use those items to create a “map” of his memory. Once the map is established Stan and Patrick, Lacuna's technicians, will come into erase the memories. The idea is that every memory has an established core that keeps it associated; remove that core and the memory begins to atrophy until it is gone. Once done, Joel will wake up afresh without any lingering memories of his lost love.

However, in order for Joel's memories to be erased, he has to re-experience them – which starts with the process that brought him to Lacuna as well as his involvement with them. It also means that for all of the bad memories (arguments, break-up fallout, etc.) Joel also has to relive all of the good memories about Clementine and then have them deleted before his eyes. Even more discomfiting is the fact that Patrick was rather stricken with Clementine when Lacuna came to her place, and has been using the data they erased to try and forge a relationship with her using the good associations she previously had with Joel. As Joel revisits his memories (and watches them die), he finds that he wants to keep them because even the bad ones make the relationship with Clementine whole. So in a bid of desperation, Joel tries to associate her with memories that are completely unrelated to the context, like his early childhood.

And you thought Kurt Vonnegut was fucked up.

The thing that makes this movie so compelling is that it touches on an experience that nearly everyone has had – falling in and out of love. And unlike most Hollywood romances, Joel and Clementine's relationship is not perfect at all, in fact it starts out in the most typically awkward fashion. Their attraction for each other is fueled by their opposing natures, which eventually also causes much of their conflict. So this movie presents us with a very realistic relationship. It also gives a rather Faustian posit: if you could wipe your mind clean of the memory of someone who broke your heart badly, would you do it? Brilliantly the movie begins by showing us the consequences of that choice right off the bat. It's also interesting to note that while both Joel and Clementine managed to completely erase the memories of each other, they hadn't lost attraction for each other. (This fact also rears its head amongst the minor characters also.) Patrick's plagiarized romance with Clementine begins to demonstrate that just because you know someone else's part; it doesn't mean you fit their role. (And it also brings a new meaning to the phrase “identity theft.”) The idea of a memory removal service is also portray rather matter-of-factly. Rather than a shiny medical facility one normally finds in commercials, Lacuna Inc. looks like it's run out of a dentist's office. (Additionally, it brings up how a service might be abused by the over-dependent: the receptionist informs a caller that she cannot have the procedure performed upon her more than three times in a month.)

Ultimately, we're left with the question: if you know the love affair you're about to start is going to be doomed, would you still do it?

Line of the movie: “Where's the self-help section?”

Five stars. Now open 24 hours.