Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. I’ve been pretty busy and defunct of ideas recently, but what recently did happen is that I spent Valentine’s (well, more like the night before, because of class) with my girlfriend watching a romance movie that we’ve been wanting to get to for a while: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. As a bit of a contrast to my usual style of article that goes through a logical progression of points and is generally organized enough, I’m just going to dump some thoughts here and hope you all enjoy. I’ll assume you’ve watched the movie, though I don’t really believe in spoiling movies anyways since they’re only two hours long, lol.

Eternal Sunshine is genuinely a very unique and mold-breaking movie that I personally am hesitant to even categorize as a romance movie, because of how much it dabbles in experimental storytelling and a bit of science fiction. The defining feature is that it utilizes the combination of surrealism and challenging the audience, which, while present in many other pieces of media, is quite atypical for a movie about heterosexual white people romance set in New England. Or maybe it isn’t, it’s not like I watch a lot of romantic movies either way.

I also found it to be extremely emotionally mature because of its lack of idealism and the acceptance of the difficulties and sorrows that hit closer to home. Eternal Sunshine is not a fantasy. It has a happy ending, but not a happy-ever-after ending. Its message is not to run away from the knowledge that things did or didn’t work out – our relationships, even if broken, shape who we are and without them, we would be forever incomplete as human beings. Lifelong perfection is not to be pursued; enjoying the time we have with others, however little or how much, is worth more than anything else in the world. 

I once heard from a social worker professor I had, “How good a relationship is has nothing to do with how much they fight [rupture]. It has everything to do with how well they can repair afterwards.” The approach that characters in Eternal Sunshine approach rupture and repair is extremely elucidating to how their approach to relationships ends up. This extends beyond the two main characters of the story; in fact, I found that the plotlines of Patrick, Mary, Sean and Howard to be even more interesting than the main arc. Where does repair start, and where does it end? How does it end? At what point do we realize that something is beyond repair? And one more big thought I took away from all of this is – when we are angry, we sometimes want things that we don’t truly want. To give in to that temptation can be irreversible, such as wanting someone erased from memory. But that only destroys the possibility of repair.

I would say that the movie is highly relatable for a large chunk of adults, though I still lack the experiences necessary to truly say that. But I figure that for people who have had rough conflicts and breakups, the movie is the message that they needed (but not necessarily what they wanted). Joe Nobody, in his elan.school web comic, says how the movie completely and utterly broke him after experiencing an out-of-the-blue divorce after 5 years of marriage, which was a decision completely made by him. No matter how much we might feel in the moment that we have to forget, that forgetting is the only way to move on, it seems that the fundamental truth is that it’s never possible to truly eradicate memories and feelings. Our minds, after a certain point, will never be spotless. That’s only for children. If only we could be children again, the shame in the present rather than the past. Wouldn’t that be more bearable?

Eternal Sunshine also seems to be really influential. I’m no movie buff but I don’t think anyone who has seen Inception would miss all the parallels between the two films. The idea of going into someone’s brain as they’re sleeping, the layers and layers we go down until we hit the most fundamental memories of a relationship gone, the last scene being at a house on the beach. Or maybe those are all referenced from yet another earlier piece of work. Like I said, I can’t claim to be an expert on any of this stuff, and I’m sorry if I’m completely unaware of some classic piece of work that I just don’t know anything about. It’s also worth mentioning that the reason we wanted to watch this movie in the first place was that Kan Gao, creator of the To The Moon series of RPGMaker games, cited Eternal Sunshine as one of the big inspirations for his story – namely, the idea of technicians exploring someone’s memories in order to grant their wish. Although, in To The Moon, the moral of the story and undoubtedly the author’s opinion on memory alteration is very different, as it is generally a lot more positive compared to the conclusion reached by Mary in Eternal Sunshine. 

Honestly, there is a lot more specific analysis that I could go into about this movie. In a weird way, I want to. I kinda wish I could toss a few images and quotes in here, get a whole structure going, but eh, whatever. Sometimes the thought dump feels better to read, and more genuine from the heart. Structure or no structure, I thought Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was incredibly thought-provoking and cathartic to anyone who has been in love, whether it has been lost or not. I hope that people can continue to feel its impact on the way we think about relationships.