I know I write about love a lot. Love, relationships, sex, and marriage are all things that come to my mind pretty frequently. Mostly because I know relationships and love and sex and marriage are all common ground for us. Everyone has been in love, wants to be in love, has been in a relationship or has daydreamed about marriage. Or possibly had nightmares involving all of the above.
Despite all of my rants about relationships, the truth is- I hate romance movies. Or at least I thought I did. Granted, I love Titanic and Sleepless in Seattle just as hopelessly as the next girl. But aside from my very few, very guilty, and very private pleasures- I’m not a romance-y kind of girl. My bizarre definition of romance is Chinese food and Rosemary’s Baby on a Thursday night, just as long as we watch the whole thing.
Lately, I have been reading a lot of screenplays, and there’s this one screenwriter in particular, Charlie Kaufman, who I am incredibly attracted to. He’s the guy who wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovitch, and Adaptation, among others. Anyway, he’s a total weirdo, his movies frequently have very abstract plots and very compelling characters but for whatever reason, they all come together in the end and work very, very well. For a while, I figured his movies to just be really weird, and oddly great- I had seen Eternal Sunshine and Being John Malkovitch a few times each and just sort of took them for face value- entertaining in a messed up sort of way.
A couple weeks ago I read the Shooting Script for Eternal Sunshine. I wanted to get a taste of how Kaufman writes these crazy stories and how they translate from paper to screen. I did not expect to spend two hours in bed, crying silent tears and sobbing quietly. But I did. Me, the lover of fart jokes and B-Rated horror flicks, laid in bed crying over a movie. But it’s not just a crazy movie with great characters- it’s a love story.
If any of you have seen it, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, I’ll break it down for you very quickly. Clementine and Joel used to be in love, but Clementine had Joel erased from her memory. In an act of spite, Joel decides to do the same. As the procedure starts and Joel is in a deep sleep, he decides he doesn’t want to erase her after all, and does everything he can to save her memory.
Sigh.
There are a lot of great subplots, but that’s the basis of the story. Also, Kristen Dunst dances in her panties on a bed, so there’s a reason for your boyfriend to go see it with you. But anyway, that’s the premise. And Kaufman really captures what it is to be brokenhearted- angry, mournful, upset, sad, and that feeling of tragic and endless solitude. And who the hell hasn’t had the desire to erase some idiot ex-boyfriend from their memory?
By the end of the movie (and towards the end of my cry sesh) I knew exactly how Joel and Clementine felt. They no longer hated each other’s guts or wanted to scream/cry every time someone uttered the others name. Instead, Joel looks at the memories and smiles, laughs even. He misses her and he misses what they had, but he knows (I think at least) that he doesn’t need her anymore. And damn I’m getting misty eyed here at my keyboard just thinking about it, because it’s so true, and so… real. It is an experience everyone has, or will have. That feeling of resolution, without some silly, faux conversation over coffee.
Even Being John Malkovitch– probably one of the weirdest concept movies I have ever seen (they find a portal to John Malkovitch- yes, that guy from that movie- and can enter his sub-conscious, essentially, I think is just a complex and complicated love story. And even though the situation is insane, and the characters are sort of crazy, you know how they feel! That heartbroken anger and jealousy stage. Even in a movie as crazy as that, Kaufman is able to capture it almost effortlessly.
I guess the point of this rant is- well, I do love love stories. Just not the normal kind.
I love the kind that don’t always end well. The Annie Hall sort of romance. The true kind of love. The love story that doesn’t end in tears, but ends in heartbreak. The kind where when it’s over you sort of sigh and can’t look at your significant other for a few minutes because you have to take it all in, because it’s beautiful, and honest. And it’s you.