No Blameless Vestals Here
by Andrew Collins
Before there was Inception, there was . . . a Jim Carrey rom-com?
Something like that.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a 2004 project from director Michel Gondry, pushes the bounds of verisimilitude at only one point — in the world of the film, mind-wiping technology exists that can target and eliminate certain memories. If viewers can make the jump to accept this, they’re in for a thoughtful, heartwarming treat.
The film follows the story of Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), who falls in love with a girl named Clementine (Kate Winslet). Clementine has a restless, untamable spirit that clashes with Joel’s “average Joe” persona, and when their relationship goes through a rough spell, she decides to erase all of her memories of him. Heartbroken, Joel decides to have the same procedure performed on himself, but when his memories of Clementine start unraveling in his mind after he is induced into a coma for the memory-wiping process (not unlike the extraction process in Inception), he starts to have second thoughts.
It’s normally appropriate to credit the director for most of a film’s creative vision, but in the case of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it goes back further to screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. Kaufman is rare among screenwriters in that he personally chooses the directors for his films. He reportedly got the idea for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind from a friend of Gondry’s, which may have put Gondry on the map for the director role despite his lack of feature film experience. It seems Kaufman wanted to have more sway over the director so that his vision could bleed through more. Whatever the reason, it turned out to be a boon to both of their careers, as the film remains Kaufman’s biggest commercial hit to date and arguably his best work, while Gondry has gone on to direct several high-profile (though less impressive) projects, including Be Kind Rewind, episodes of Flight of the Conchords, and The Green Hornet.
The film’s wordy title comes from Alexander Pope’s poem Eloisa to Aberlard, the following portion of which is quoted in the film:
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d;
Beautiful, except it is quoted by a stoned Kirsten Dunst hitting on a man at least twice her age.
Don’t worry about the rest of the context. The absurdity of it all makes Pope’s lines stand out like a ring in the pig’s snout, but despite the circumstances, they added enough literary sophistication to reengage my attention just before I was about to write it off as poorly executed, uninteresting and not funny enough to deserve continued viewing. I’m glad I didn’t, because unlike Inception, the film thrives at the bookends, outside of Jim Carrey’s mind.
Inside? Well, it’s about what you’d expect in the mind of a half-crazed Jim Carrey. His character, Joel, tries to hold Clementine tight in his mind, even while conscious of the process going on inside his head. As he drags her memory into unexpected parts of his own mind, the film takes us through a bizarre series of memories that overlap and morph into one another, ranging from intimate moments in bed with Clementine to hiding under the dining room table as a weeping toddler — except that in each setting Joel is depicted in his grown-up body. Meanwhile, sounds from the ‘extractor’ Stan (Mark Ruffalo) playing hanky-panky with the doctor’s assistant, Mary (Dunst), echo through the entire scene.
By the time we arrive at the film’s conclusion, a moment of strangely sentimental realism, all of the mental antics feel worthwhile. The story offers hope that true love will triumph in the end — even when almost all memory of it has been erased. Yet it tempers the naïve sense of happily-ever-after that pervades rom-coms with a sharp reminder that relationships take work. Over and over again, Clementine reminds Joel that she will not be an easy person to love.
“I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you,” Joel says.
“But you will!” Clementine cries, “But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me.”
“Okay,” Joel answers.
Even though his response comes across as reckless and naive — typical of any foolish, love-struck man — we wouldn’t have it any other way. Indeed, could we have it any other way? No man knows the full extent of the trials and tribulations he will face when he commits to loving a woman — if he did, he probably wouldn’t do it in the first place. After all, any sort of meaningful love, the kind that really matters, demands unconditional commitment and personal sacrifice.
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” thus becomes an ironic title, for in the end, all of the minds have plenty of blemishes, brought to light by virtue of sharing life with someone. It reminds us that closeness and intimacy in relationships breeds a certain messiness, and that’s okay. To quote another poet, “It’s better to have loved, even if you lose that love, than to never have loved at all.”
