The film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind starts by introducing a story of love, but a sudden plot twist is revealed that then brings you through the memories Joel and Clementine shared and a constant loop of their love life.
Its Valentines day and Joel is running to catch his train in Montauk where a strange girl named Clementine catches his attention. They happen to be heading to the same place and they run into each other a few more times. In an encounter they had Clementine decides to invite him over, they have a couple drinks together while they conversate, this is where this “horror” love story truly begins.
Their relationship starts off as a “perfect” relationship. They’re in their honeymoon phase where they’re practically “obsessed” with each other . But as a relationship often does they begin arguing and disagreeing with each other Clementine begins falling out of love slowly. They break up.
After the break up it was brought up to Joel that Clementine underwent a procedure. A memory-erasing procedure. He was hurt to hear this and decided he wanted to undergo the same procedure. He gets rid of everything and anything that could possibly remind him of her. The procedure was done on him as well. But for some reason when what he wanted was to erase Clementine from his memory it was quite the opposite that happend ,she was the only thing he could think of. In the film it takes you through strange scenes of both Clementine and Joel. In a specific scene Clementine whispers in Joel’s ear “meet me in Montauk” this is where you can connect it back to the beginning of the film where Joel is running for his bus in Montauk.
When watching this film each person will see it with different perspectives. You’ll either see it as a “horror” story or as a beautiful love story. You get the “horror” story experience when you view it as Joel struggling to get Clementine out of his head. You’ll see it as a beautiful love story when you realize how strong their love was that even with undergoing the procedure they weren’t able to completely forget about one another and still managed to meet each other again.
