Lillias Cummings / Copy Editor

     If you had the choice to erase someone and every memory you ever had with this person, do you think you would take the chance to? After watching the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” the answer became crystal clear to me.

      The movie follows Joel and Clementine, played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet respectively, in their troubled relationship and Clementine’s choice to erase Joel from her memory after their very intense breakup. After Joel finds this out, he decides to undergo the same procedure to erase Clementine from his memory. He comes to regret the decision midway through the procedure as he attempts to grasp on to any memory he has of Clementine.

     There is so much to unpack in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” This movie changed the entire way I thought about my memories and how they connect to me as a person. I genuinely had to sit with myself and just think about some of my worst memories and what I would do if I could erase them.

     Even if our memories are bad, does that mean we should erase them? Or are those memories another part of your story that make you who you are? 

     I believe memories are what set you apart from the person standing next to you. All those experiences you have, whether they are good or bad, make up who you are as a person. Without them, you have nothing to make you different, or an individual in any way: Everything about us comes back to our memories and experiences. 

     The thought and care that went into the filming of this movie is absolutely insane. It plays out in such a non-linear and almost messy way, almost like how we recall our own memories.

     When we recall our memories, they are most of the time not going to be flawless and often will have parts left out or are overly emphasized. The director, Michel Gondry, recreates how we process our own memories so well it’s almost unsettling. 

     Specifically, I think of the scene where Joel is chasing after Clementine. He gets out of his car to go get her, and as he attempts to walk in her direction, he sees the exact car he just got out of but not in the place he parked it. He turns around to see Clementine walking in the opposite direction. As he runs after her again, he ends up right in front of his car yet again, like the memory just keeps flipping–similar to our own memories, which can be flipped completely from the original experience.

     Not only is the display of memories so elaborately done, but the little things you can pick up about the characters and the way they live just by their exterior is so well done. 

     When you watch the movie, you notice the constant changing of Clementine’s hair–she says she loves to change it and can never stick to one color. As the movie progresses and you see more of her personality, you realize the changing of her hair directly correlates to her impulsive nature and her need to never be tied down to one thing. 

     The same goes for Joel: When the people come to his house to do the procedure to remove Clementine from his memory, they make little comments about how it’s so “plain and uninspired,” in his apartment. Similar to his personality, which is the complete opposite of Clementine, he’s very reserved and just kind of a plain guy. This is just one of the many small but significant details that Gondry puts into the film, and that I love.

     But that’s not even close to the end of it. The casting for the movie is beyond perfect. When I think of Jim Carrey I always think of him in his silly roles like “The Grinch” and “Dumb and Dumber,” but to me this is easily his best role. Taking on such a serious role, as someone who mostly does silly things, I can only imagine is very hard, but he makes it look so easy. He did it so well that I cried twice simply because of him and Kate Winslet’s incredible acting. Winslet plays her role as an impulsive and unstable person so well that there were many times that her character made me so angry, but simultaneously sorry for her.

     The end of the movie is just the cherry on top of the really sad ice cream. It wasn’t a bad ending, but it also wasn’t a happy ending. To me, the ending felt hopeful yet somewhat somber. There was hope for their relationship, but I was left also knowing it would fail (again). 

     “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is a must watch if you are a movie analyzer and like to look deeper than what’s on the surface. Overall, I could talk endlessly about how intricate and incredibly done this movie was created. (9.8/10)