4) Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
I know what you’re thinking – why on earth would you choose to watch a movie about heart-break and break-ups on a first date? A movie about people who feel that their relationship was so bad – so excruciatingly painful – that they would choose to have it literally erased from their memories? Well, just like in relationships, you have to read between the lines.
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is a difficult movie to define. The closest anyone has ever come to the accurate categorization of this critical and commercial success, is to describe it as a ‘romantic science fiction dramedy.’ Starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, the film is directed by Michel Gondry and boasts an Academy Award winning screenplay by Charlie Kaufman.
The story follows the withdrawn Joel (Carrey) for the most part, as he encounters the free-spirited Clementine (Winslet) on a Long Island Rail Road train from Montauk, New York. They are drawn to each other, which seems at once bizarre – due to their wildly different personas – and completely natural – for reasons we don’t quite understand. The result is a beautiful depiction of two people meeting, and connecting. Beautiful though it is, however, something seems ‘off.’
It soon transpires that Joel and Clementine aren’t strangers at all. They are actually former lovers whose relationship has deteriorated to the point where, after a fight, she seeks the help of Lacuna Inc. – a company that uses a medical procedure to map and erase unwanted memories. On being notified that all traces of him have been removed from Clementine’s mind, Joel is devastated and decides to invest in the procedure himself – effectively erasing her.
What follows is his experience, from inside his own mind, as his memories of his time with Clementine are systematically destroyed. As the process begins to take the good memories along with the bad, Joel begins to regard the relationship – and her – in a different way. He begins to remember how he felt before all the debris and detritus of every day built up and got in the way.
Instead of festering on the relationship, he begins to remember Clementine, and desperately fights to retain some recollection of her. It’s all for nought, however, and Clementine is gone. He left simply with an overwhelming urge to go to Montauk.
The whole story is raw and powerful stuff, with Jim Carrey turning in one of his all-too-rare astonishing performances. It is beautifully written and boasts incredible direction and visual style. But it’s not until the final chapter of the film that we remember why this is the perfect first date movie. After everything, Joel and Clementine find each other again. By stripping away all the layers of irritation and frustration, it becomes apparent to them both that they themselves allowed those layers to build in the first place, and that they can make a different choice.
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is about forgiveness, openness, willingness to take a chance, and the importance of remembering the initial connection you felt during that first magical encounter. It’s a film that is as perfect for date number one hundred, as it is for date number one.