Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: Difference between revisions

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''Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned."''|'''Alexander Pope''', ''Eloisa to Abelard'', as [[Title Drop|quoted]] by Mary Svevo.}}

 

 

The result is a film that's both funny and poignant, to the point where it won an [[Academy Award]] for Best Screenplay.

 

* [[Amnesiac Lover]]: Clementine, and later {{spoiler|Joel as well.}}

** {{spoiler|Mary}} for Dr. Mierzwiak.

* [[Brain Bleach]]: [[Deconstructed Trope]] through Lacuna Inc's memory wipe procedure, which arguably makes up most of the plot.

* [[Caught with Your Pants Down]]: One of Joel's humiliating memories is his mother catching him masturbating to [[Furry Fandom|furry porn]] as a teen.

* [[Dead Sparks]]: Where Joel and Clementine's first relationship ends [[Anachronic Order|(starts?)]].

* [[Deconstruction]]: The film deconstructs the romantic comedy genre simply by showing the events of the weeks after Joel and Clementine fall in love.

** Even more than that, the [[Anachronic Order]] we see things in is the ''normal'' order of a [[Romantic Comedy]]: first the fight, then they fall in love. We see it in that order, but really it's the reverse order as they fell out of love.

* [[Dude, She's Like, in a Coma]]: Stan says this almost verbatim to Patrick after he tells him he stole a pair of Clem's panties. There's an awkward silence before they both break out laughing.

* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: Joel and Clementine are back together. Will it work out this time, or will history just repeat itself? Neither one knows, but that's not going to stop them from trying.

* [[Kaleidoscope Hair]]: Clementine frequently re-dues her hair.

* [[Kick the Dog]]: Deleted scenes reveal that {{spoiler|not only did Howard convince Mary to erase her memories of their relationship, he also had her get an abortion earlier}}.

*** This being after he specifically told her earlier that she had personally wanted the procedure.

* [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]]: Well, computer guided really...

* [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Kate Winslet and Kirsten Dunst get many nice underwear shots.

* [[Never Heard That One Before]]: One of the first things Clementine asks Joel not to do is make jokes about her name. He immediately starts singing "Oh My Darlin', Clementine".

* [[Once More, with Clarity]]: The scenes of Joel meeting Clementine on Montauk at the beginning are repeated later, at which point it's clear that they're {{spoiler|meeting for the second time, but neither one is aware of it.}} Even the sound of a van driving away outside as Joel wakes up turns out to be {{spoiler|the Lacuna, Inc. van.}}

* [[Perma-Stubble]]: Joel sports a non-manly variation thereof.

* [[The Reveal]]: Mary {{spoiler|already had an affair with Dr. Mierzwiak before the film started, then opted to have her memory wiped of the ordeal.}} The fact that the film sets this up to happen again is in keeping with the theme that [[You Can't Fight Fate]] where love is concerned.

* [[Screw Destiny]]: {{spoiler|Joel manages to implant the suggestion to go back to Montauk despite the memory rewrite - and Clementine's appearance on the same train suggests that she may have done the same.}}

* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: The movie itself is ambiguous (or at least balanced) on this, but it does seem to be fairly effective at revealing where ''viewers'' are on the scale.

* [[Third-Person Flashback]]: Possible aversion as we see the movie as a third person memory of the protagonist's dreams. In real life he has no memory of his romantic rival's face because he didn't see it, so even though we see it in third person, no matter how he moves the guy he's always [[The Blank]].

* [[Title Drop]]: The page quote.

* [[Transferable Memory]]: Averted.

* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: Joel. A great portion of the film is told through Joel's memories of events he experienced with Clementine, but the unreliability of those memories is shown on at least two occasions. When Joel first arrives home the night of the erasure, his neighbor chats with him about Valentine's Day. This is then the first substantial memory about Clementine that gets erased. But while this event took place just a short while (maybe an hour at most) before the erasure, it is shown that Joel is already incorrectly remembering what his neighbor said to him. Other less obvious hints abound (e.g. Joel remembering childhood events while being adult in appearance). Taking the imperfection of human memory alongside whether Joel considered a given memory as enjoyable or upsetting, the audience ought to wonder if what they're viewing is what ''actually'' happened, or if Joel's memories are distorted, exaggerated, or embellished because of the passing of time and because of his emotional state at the time of the event.

** This troper always believed that when you see Joel as an adult (when he's in a childhood memory), that represents the adult Joel interacting with the memory. This is why he can talk about wanting his mother's attention and then turn to Clementine and articulate his feelings in adult terms. When you see Joel as a kid, that's not Joel reliving the memory as much as simply remembering it.

* [[Wham! Line]]:

* [[Where Were You Last Night?]]: The last time Joel saw Clementine before she had him erased was when she stumbled in the door at 3 A.M. after drunkenly scraping his car against a fire hydrant. The fight coming from Joel's reaction was Clementine's impetus to the procedure.

* [[You Can't Fight Fate]]: Clementine and Joel show signs that they would have gotten back together {{spoiler|even hadn't Mary opted to break the rules and mail them back all of the materials required for the procedure}}.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Hugo Award]]

[[Category:Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind]]