All-time favorites, part 2: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

If were to turn a contronym (a word that means both a thing and its opposite) into a movie, you could only ever have Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Sunshine is a love story and an anti-love story, hopeful and cynical simultaneously.

In that, it’s the only relationship movie that I’ve ever seen that is, well, real. Which is ironic since it’s structurally and visually one of the unreal movies you may ever see.

What has always stuck with me is that the central conflict is not really about Joel and Clementine, or any of the other characters or relationships. It’s about the internal conflicts that determine our success, failure and happiness in anything.

Sunshine is really a statement about memory and our ability to change. Memory is one element in how we define who we are. But memory can also trap us in feelings of resentment and failure, and make us reluctant to change. It can be knowledge that you learn from or it can be that voice in your head that says things can never be different, never be good, and will always be the same.

Sunshine, with all its darkness, is about how—even if we can’t have our memories erased—we don’t necessary have to be trapped in the past.