Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
I can’t remember anything without you.
THE SUMMARY: After a relationship sours, a woman undergoes an experimental neurological procedure to erase painful memories and her ex-boyfriend follows, only to end up back together again anyway. It’s hard to summarize this movie in a sentence that does it justice, because outside of a little too much artsy self-indulgence and some lame side characters, Sunshine is a masterpiece of big themes: learning lessons, processing regret, and understanding your fate.
NO MOVIE-PICKER COMMENTARY THIS WEEK: Sunshine is a random selection from the IMDb top-250 list after last week’s nominations were rejected by vote. It is currently ranked #93.
JAMIE AND JEANNE’S SHOW AI ART FOR THE WEEK:
Blonde looks like Wendy.
There’s no way any man actually wears pajamas like this.
Not sure which one is more uncomfortable.
Note the drawing.
THE BEST:
If you could erase bad memories, would you?: Most fundamentally, Sunshine is about this question: if there was an easy button to forget painful things, would you? The correct answer is no, and Sunshine gets that right, but for the right reasons. Sure, life teaches you harsh, painful lessons, but how could you possibly learn from them if you simply erase the lesson from your mind? The pain is the natural reminder to avoid that action next time.
But just as importantly, Sunshine is a lesson that life is not so cleanly divisible into ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ The greatest parts of your life will have pain. The worst parts of your life will have silver linings. Joel learns this lesson the hard way, watching memories he cherishes disappear for the sake of ‘comfort,’ until he’s screaming to the sky with regret. Pain hurts, sure - but if there’s one thing often worse, it’s numbness. At least pain is a feeling.
The point is, every experience in your life is a lesson, and only a fool throws a lesson away. If the lesson hurts, toughen up and learn from it. Don’t run away, and definitely don’t erase - that’s the ultimate cowardice.
When the world compels you, listen: Is it possible that fate and free will exist simultaneously? My mind is considering this apparent conflict a lot lately, even in last week’s review of In the Mouth of Madness. I don’t actually think these concepts are mutually exclusive. I think there are paths you are supposed to take, but it’s up to you to take them. And the ones you’re supposed to take will make themselves apparent and available often.
To that point, the best things I have in my life are because of a strange force that compelled me to action: quitting my ‘real’ job to build a YouTube channel, going to California to meet my future wife for the first time, getting into the house in which I will now build my family, and more. In each of these cases, there was some force of the universe that compelled me to act for reasons I couldn’t even fully explain. Some of these decisions weren’t fully rational or logical - they were just things the world told me to do, and I couldn’t refuse. And now they’re the things I know I was supposed to do, because I can’t imagine my life otherwise.
It’s exactly what happens to end this movie. Joel must skip work and take the train to Montauk. He doesn’t know why. It’s somewhat out of character. It’s seemingly silly and makes no sense. But he must, and it’s because the world intends for him to find Clementine. Again. It doesn’t matter how many times Joel chooses otherwise. It doesn’t matter if he outright erases her from his brain. Joel is supposed to find her, and until he chooses correctly, he will travel different paths ultimately that bring him back to her anyway.
Of course I’m not advocating being completely impulsive, thoughtless, or reckless. I am saying the world has a plan and a purpose for you, and will drop clues frequently. There’s wisdom in picking up on those clues, and following them, even when the path doesn’t seem completely sensible at first.
Based Clementine on being a mom: There’s a great scene when Joel and Clementine are walking down the street, Clementine says she wants to be a mom, Joel questions whether she’s ready to be a mom, and she freaks out on him in public. While I’m sympathetic with the idea that these conversations don’t belong in public view, the heart of Clementine’s point is correct: if your boyfriend or girlfriend balks at the idea of parenthood, why are you with that person? If you’ve been together for years, and children aren’t already agreed upon, you’re doing it backward. This is a first date conversation, not a two-years-together conversation.
Based Clementine on fa**otry: Likewise, when Clementine leaves Joel after her drunk driving mishap, I just appreciate that she has the boldness to call him a fa**ot in public. This is good. More of this.
There’s nobody you can trust to manage your life better than you: To the first point, even if it was possible to erase bad memories with precision, is there anybody you could trust to do it? Yes, we trust doctors to fix our bodies and brains in many other contexts, but to allow someone the authority to manipulate your very thoughts and memories themselves not for any medical reason, but just because you find them uncomfortable - that requires an inhuman level of perfection.
Which is a crucial point in the movie: the people we think are ‘professionals’ who will handle our problems with the precision that we lack… aren’t. They’re just degenerates who smoke weed and bang randos like anybody else.
The point is if you have painful memories, there’s nobody who can manage those issues for you better than you can. Every bad memory is a lesson, and you can either run from it, or learn from it and give it purpose. Trusting someone else to manage those lessons for your is foolish.
You can’t escape your destiny.
Deleting only bad things isn’t so simple.
THE WORST:
A little indulgent in artsy nonsense: The movie sniffs a few of its own farts, for sure. Joel’s diary writing and narration, primarily, but there’s plenty of ‘dreamy’ aesthetic stuff that doesn’t really serve a plot purpose: memories getting mashed together, faces disappearing, musical interludes, that sort of thing. Does that make the movie bad? Of course not - it just means it lacks a little focus at times. But perhaps that’s the point. It is a movie about losing focus, after all.
Non-linear timeline isn’t necessary in part: By now I’ve probably written it a dozen times - I don’t much like non-linear timelines. Often they aren’t necessary. They’re just used to be ‘different’ in a way that doesn’t actually add anything to the story. Sunshine is guilty of this in part - I’m not sure why the movie starts with Joel meeting Clementine for the second time. Without the context of their history, their meeting comes off as painfully awkward and weird. It’s only with the information you get later that you can appreciate that interaction, but you don’t get that interaction later, you get it first.
Plus Sunshine already necessarily uses a non-linear timeline by visiting memories in reverse anyhow. This I have no problem with - it makes sense that Joel’s memories would be visited in order of recency, starting with the breakup, and backing up all the way to meeting Clementine. That’s plenty of time warp. Starting with the ending doesn’t serve much purpose, and makes it more confusing.
Ruffalo, Dunst, and Wood: To my point that you should trust nobody to manage your own memories for you, I think that’s the point of these characters being so detestable. But that doesn’t make them enjoyable, either. Stan (Ruffalo) is a douchebag who doesn’t take his very serious job seriously at at all, allows his creeper assistant to prey on his clients, and bangs his coworker without telling her he erased her memory of doing this last time, a memory from which she should learn. Speaking of, Mary (Dunst) is a slutty druggy home-wrecker, habitually. Patrick (Wood) steals panties and girlfriends, and his mating strategy is to map himself onto memories of other men. He’s one step short of putting on a dead man’s skin suit to get laid.
They’re all just awful, but I grant that’s the point. We’re supposed to have contempt for people who would provide this ‘service.’ They are anti-human degenerates who are totally comfortable playing God.
The infidelity sub-plot doesn’t really make sense: As a sub-plot, we learn that Mary actually had an affair with her boss, Dr. Howard, but had the memory-erasing procedure afterward. This point gets revealed when she throws herself at Howard, and Howard’s wife arrives to see them in action through the window.
The problem is, this plot point doesn’t make much sense, for two reasons:
1) if this affair happened before, then how is Howard defending himself to his wife saying ‘this is a one-time mistake?’ Perhaps his wife didn’t know about the first affair? Nope - his wife responds to Mary in this exchange: ‘you can have him - you did.’ Thus, Howard’s ‘one-time’ defense makes no sense. His wife knows this isn’t the first time.
2) if Mary had a prior affair with Howard and her memory erased, how does she possibly still work at the clinic? When Joel agrees to undergo the memory erasure, Howard instructs him the first thing to do is to collect and remove any item associated with Clementine so as not to remind himself upon awakening from the procedure. We also see those cards that patients who have had memories erased give to their friends and families instructing them not to mention the forgotten person, so as not to re-awaken memories.
If people who have had memories erased can’t see items associated with the forgotten person, or aren’t supposed to hear discussion of that person, how is it possible that Mary still works at the clinic with the forgotten person, Howard, but never has her memory re-activated?
Mary is just a uniquely dumb slut, apparently. Point taken.
This isn’t even acting. It’s just them being their douchebag selves.
How does she still work there? And how is it deniable the second time?
THE RATING: 5/5 Wickies. It’s not without faults, but it’s a highly memorable, big-concept movie that reminds us to learn from mistakes, not run from them, and to listen to the forces of the world when they tell you what to do.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇ Note: if you get a notification saying you have already voted and you haven’t, this is because of an issue with iOS (Apple mobile devices). Try voting on a desktop or laptop computer.
NEXT WEEK: The Sixth Sense (1999). This is a random selection from IMDb’s top-250 list, since the nominations were rejected in last week’s vote.
AFTER THAT? YOU PICK - VOTE! December’s nominations are from listener Stephen. I’m told that Return of the Living Dead 3 is its own independent story, hence we’ll allow the sequel. Note: if you get a notification saying you have already voted and you haven’t, this is because of an issue with iOS (Apple mobile devices). Try voting on a desktop or laptop computer.
Want to be the movie nominator for the month? Here’s how - fill out the form below. Note: once you are entered, you are eligible for selection on an ongoing basis. One entry per participant - multiple entries will be rejected.