The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a top 3 favorite movie of all time in my book. I love saying that because it’s one of those lesser known movies that makes me feel special for liking it. Here’s a brief synopsis:

It’s a movie about two dysfunctional lovers, Joel (played by Jim Carrey) and Clementine (played by Kate Winslet) that meet each other on a train in Montauk. Hmm, I always thought that was a funny name. Montauk. But anyways, the movie starts out like any other cinematic romance: though they’re totally different, they’re absolutely in love with one another! But as time progresses, their relationship suffers from lack of excitement and various arguments, which eventually turn into bitter hatred towards one another. The pain from their once perfect relationship eventually becomes so severe, that they resort to having their memories of each other permanently erased from their minds–literally.

Thus, the bulk of the movie actually takes place in Joel’s mind while he’s lying in bed hooked up to some crude mind-erasing device. In Joel’s subconsciousness, he and Clementine run from memory to memory: some depicting times of joy and others, times of hardship. With every passing memory, the machine goes delete, delete, delete. Entire memories suddenly forever forgotten.

Finally, Joel and Clementine have run out of memories save one: the place where they first met and fell in love. By this point, Joel and Clementine have realized that this mind-erasing thing was a huge mistake. But what can they do? The machine is about to delete this last memory and while trapped inside Joel’s mind, they’re powerless to stop it. The soon to be forever ex-couple say,

Joel: It would be different if we could just give it another go-around.

Clementine: Remember me. Try your best. Maybe we can.

(with the last memory almost completely deleted, Clementine has time for one last sentence)

Clementine: Meet me in Montauk…

After that, Joel wakes up from the mind-erasing process, totally unaware of what had just transpired, having no idea of who or even what a Clementine is. But for some reason, the next morning, he has a sudden urge to go on a train to Montauk. Sure enough, Clementine’s on that train too. She too, has no idea who Joel is or why she’s even there. Hey wait a second, isn’t this exactly what happened in the start of the movie? Why, yes, it is! Joel and Clementine are meeting again for what they believe is their first time, where they first met, totally unaware of their broken past. And guess what? They fall right back in love with each other again.

This has been one of my favorite movies of all time for a couple years, but only now do I realize why. Inherently, in the core of my God-created-heart, it resonates with the love of Jesus Christ. Like anything that’s truly good in this world, this movie reflects just another aspect of his perfect redeeming love. And like anything in this world, it still falls so short of the glory of God.

Here’s why. At the end of the movie, Joel and Clementine come to the conclusion in Joel’s apartment hallway that the past is the past–they’re ready to start over. Then, all of a sudden, a new scene appears and Joel and Clementine are playing in the snow with each other (then the movie fades to white and credits roll). This last scene of Joel and Clementine is seemingly out of place. An interview with the movie’s writer reveals that the reason for the odd ending is that,

“This desire apparently sprang from the initial intent (expressed in an early script) that Joel and Clementine spent the rest of their lives meeting, falling in and out of love, getting their memories erased, and then repeating the cycle.”

Apparently, Joel and Clementine go the rest of their lives through repeated processes of falling in love, breaking up, and then getting their minds erased of each other. Even after being gloriously reunited at the end of the movie, they eventually fall again and again and again. How terrible! In almost any context, this would be such an ugly picture of love. But God makes the ugly, beautiful. What an awesome picture of God’s redemption story: people of grace constantly forgetting His ridiculous love, and an amazing God compelled by love, constantly forgetting all their sins. And not only are they forgotten, they’re forgiven. Now, that’s the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Now go and tell his disciples, including Peter, that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died. (Mark 16:7)