"Meet me...in Montauk."
It's said that Romeo and Juliet is the greatest love story told. Perhaps it is. After all, both went to extreme lengths to be with one another. Yet, had Romeo and Juliet spent more time together, instead of a handful of fleeting days, their relationship would’ve hit some rough patches. Romeo would’ve found Juliet's neediness to be annoying, while Juliet would’ve surely started to hate Romeo’s behavior when he was around his brood of idiots. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, love isn’t treated like the ticking time bomb that it is in real life. Love came easy to them aside from their war torn families. In some ways it was a right, but in reality it’s a privilege that’s constantly evolving between two people. Literature purists can have Romeo and Juliet. In my mind, the most spot on story (or film for this matter) to cover the honest ups and downs of a relationship is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film that features one of the best screenplays of the last twenty years.
Eternal Sunshine… is an inventive film that more or less takes place in the mind and memories of Joel Barrish (Jim Carrey). After starting a relationship with Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet), Joel has found the woman his heart has been starving for. She’s nearly everything he isn’t, and finding someone who spites his neuroses is the ultimate catch for Joel. As their relationship evolves from puppy love to one of a more intimate nature, things begin to become shaky. Soon, the personality differences that was a driving force behind their relationship becomes a coffin, suffocating each of them with their partner’s idiosyncrasies. Resentment now becomes the crutch of their relationship rather than love, and their breakup was undeniable. Now Joel, struggling in the aftermath of his breakup with Clementine, desperately seeks refuge for his broken heart. He can’t rid Clementine from his mind, and he wants her back to resolve his pain. In what seems like a foolish attempt, Joel confronts Clementine only for her to act as if she’s never met him. It’s a crippling blow for Joel, but his spirits are slightly uplifted when he finds out that Clementine took part in a medical procedure that erased him from her mind.
Emotionally distraught, Joel seeks out the company that assisted Clementine in her desires. His initial visit with erasure entrepreneur Dr. Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) is about collecting information, but knowing his troubles with leaving Clementine behind, Joel demands to have any trace of his former lover to be erased. Joel undergoes the procedure, one that is ‘on par with a night of heavy drinking’, and has his memory eradicated by Mierzwiak’s technicians Patrick (Elijah Wood) and Stan (Mark Ruffalo). While in his comatose state, Joel sees all of his memories being erased one by one. The hurtful memories are easy for Joel to let go of, but when he relives the memories where he and Clementine act as one soul, he begins to regret the process and tries to stop it. Joel runs from memory to memory, trying to hide his precious moments with Clementine from the erasure process. As you can imagine, these scenes of memory evasion are mind bending. Known for his ingenuity, director Michel Gondry fills the film with visual delights that are emotionally surreal. From a disintegrating house to an oversized sink that acts as a bath, Gondry inventively creates a world where a person can rummage through their memories and tangibly relive them. This is not to say that Eternal Sunshine... is merely a visual film, instead it’s a very cerebral one that daringly looks at love without kid gloves. Written by Charlie Kaufman, the mind fuck wunderkind, Eternal Sunshine… spits in the face of convention.
When most romantic tales begin with a boy meeting a girl, Eternal Sunshine…begins with a girl breaking up with a boy, a notion that last year's (500) Days of Summer utilized effectively. It starts at the end and fights its way back, showing us the strain between Joel and Clementine, only to alleviate the pressure on the two as the film relives their more loving moments. Even though Kaufman’s use of memory erasure is out of reality’s reach, his take on love is anything but a work of fiction. His understanding of a relationship’s downfalls and triumphs is palpable as he unflinchingly dissects the feelings we all have felt at one point. Assisting Kaufman’s look at love’s arc is Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. Carrey, as the subdued Joel, gives arguably his best performance as he masterfully transforms Joel’s spite into appreciation. Winslet on the other hand, known for her elegant and prestigious roles, gives an edgy performance as Clementine, a compulsive woman who spits venom. Her execution is especially engaging considering Clementine’s emotions are constantly changing, a trait that is embellished in the constant transformation of her hair color. Together Carrey and Winslet create a believable odd couple as their chemistry and passion reverberate with each scene.
Underscoring the visual flourishes and relatable story is Jon Brion’s terrific score, which more than adequately taps into the lovelorn mind of Joel. Not to mention, it services the film’s more overarching theme about finding positives in love gone awry. Brion’s use of distortion and harmonies not only make for great auditory cues for Joel’s fading memories, but they also double as a theme for the deconstruction of Joel’s resistance to the positive experiences he had with Clementine. From this we can see that even though the film starts on a painful note, it evolves to a bittersweet conclusion that makes us appreciate the love we once had. Sure, relationships come with bad moments that can cripple us emotionally, but even an ounce of love we once had can act as a dam to the hurt that floods our hearts. When comparing Joel and Clementine, or even our own relationships to Romeo and Juliet, it’s easy to see that Shakespeare’s star crossed lovers had it easy. They loved and they died for it. There were no gestating complications that tore them apart. They had a blissful end. Outside the realm of fiction, we love and we die because of it. Yet, where Romeo and Juliet couldn’t live without one another, Eternal Sunshine… shows us that we have the opportunity to access unforgettable moments that allows us to live amidst love’s demise.
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