Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

What really drew me into writing about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and thinking I have something; is what I thought to myself in the first minute or two of the movie.

Which was: “This Joel person and this Clementine person have met before. I think the plot here is that even after erasure, their internal feelings led them to Montauk Beach.”

I was right, and that gave me some confidence to keep going down this path. The main thing I am writing about here are the two main characters, Joel and Clementine.

Joel Barish

Joel, to me, represents the architypal contradiction of seemingly “rational” people. Joel sees himself through his “I” without realizing his false belief of himself as someone who is objective, when in reality, he is deeply subjective but unaware of it.

The key point being we, as spectators, have a direct vantage point to his rationalizations on why he went to Montauk, assuming Clementine is “screwing” other people, and, most importantly. the journal.

The journal, as a narrative device, was a key tool for illustrating Joel as a character. Because, just as Clementine’s visceral reactions protrude outwards, Joel’s recedes inwards. In order to then demonstrate that to the audience, you need a sort of reflective device, which is found in the journal.

However, I want to drive the claim that this journal and Joel’s interaction with it isn’t “real introspection.” It simply acts as an eye or ear for these reactions. That is, he sees and interprets an image of himself, the world, and others, but never seems to understand the agency doing so, and he ends up constructing the world he lives in from that angle. He records his emotions and perceptions, but rather than using them to understand himself, he passively constructs his reality through them ¹.

Joel Barish assumes his reserved, cautious nature is just “who he is,” without questioning how much of that is a construct or a defense mechanism. His hesitancy, over-analysis, and repression suggest that he sees himself as a stable, rational individual. His character is then a good example of an “unreliable narrator,” but not a wholly deceptive one, just in so far, as a person can deceive themselves.

Clementine

Clementine is the monkey wrench to Joel’s world, the opposite that attracts, the antithesis of his philosophical systems, which somehow works all too well to draw Joel towards her. She refuses to rationalize and instead relies wholly on her emotions, which leads to spontaneous events, as seen in her out-of-the-blue desires to go out to the lake or even talk to Joel.

What’s interesting is that, despite being his opposite, she’s not just some manic-pixie-dream-girl designed to fix him. Their relationship is more complex—Clementine’s impulsivity isn’t a perfect antidote to Joel’s restraint—just as his caution doesn’t necessarily ground her in a healthy way. Instead, their attraction comes from the friction between their ways of being, even as that friction inevitably leads to collapse.

The existence of this friction is why I came to the conclusion that the ending of the film isn’t necessarily happy. The 3 loops at the end signify the 3 years of their relationship, which again fades to black. Love is a radical affirmation that Joel can’t do because it involves accepting his emotions, and one that Clementine can’t do because it involves recognizing her agency.

Rationalization DNE introspection, you’re in your head but you don’t “see” yourself. ↩