Film Review

Elizabeth Bryan 

Deanna Tenorio 

Composition 2 

7 March 2024 

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind review 

The film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is very unique in the sense that it was creatively written and directed. To start off with a short backstory of the production, the movie is directed by Michel Gondry and written by Charlie Kaufman. The two main characters of the film are Clementine and Joel, played by Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey. During the time of this film release, which was 2004, it was very relevant to the pop culture time period of the ideal women. Personally, I have mixed emotions when it comes to how I view this film. I liked it a lot for its creativity and its explanation of memories, however I found it very repetitive and unstructured.  

To elaborate more on the plot of the film itself, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind begins with the two main characters meeting and quickly falling for each other. The film is set up to show that Joel has a very gray/bland life and personality. Throughout the film, mostly in the beginning, you can see how he tends to live day to day doing the same things and not having much to him. It is shown that once he meets Clementine there is more color and interesting aspects of Joels life because she is more of a colorful, impulsive, and fun-loving person who evens out Joel. Sort of in the beginning of the movie we see the couple split up but we do not know why and eventually Clementine just forgets about him completely. The movie then takes us on a wild adventure of their memories together and how everything ties in. I understand how the writers and directors were trying to express certain aspects of the film, but I think it could have been portrayed better. For me personally, I did not really see a visualization of how clementine made Joel more fun and colorful, I thought throughout the film he was always very bland, but I understood that he was supposed to be represented as a changed character.  

I now want to talk about the whole memory aspect because it is the main point in the film, and it was a very good mix between fiction and non-fiction. Clementine had this procedure done to erase Joel from her memory when they broke up because it was too hard for her. Joel ends up finding this out and wanting the same procedure done which takes us down a rabbit hole of their time together. I thought this was a very interesting take on the plot of the film, but it seemed very unorganized and confusing to me. The plot of the film was very all over the place and psychological to the point where you have to think about every aspect and put the pieces together yourself. Some might really enjoy that but to me personally I did not like being confused the whole film. The way it was filmed did create a very complex way of looking at the characters. Though, I do believe that this film does create depth within the characters, cinematography, and tone. Whether you are interested in this film or prefer to steer away from it, it does give meaning to themes and concepts that we all value as individuals.  

Overall, this film was very original, and I can understand how the complexity of it all would be very appealing to a specific audience but for me personally it was not something I would be excited to watch. However, I would recommend this film but I would give a small backstory on how psychological it is so people can understand what they are getting into with the confusing aspects of the film.  

Gondry, Michel. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Focus Features, 2004.