From its nostalgic soundtrack to its up-close and personal cinematography, Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind creates a beautiful and unique story through its use of visual motifs and nonlinear storytelling, expressing both the pain and regret that love can cause. Using actors Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet just added such an incredible level of reality to the whole theme of this movie (especially since Jim Carrey was the main character). For me, at least, seeing an actor who is primarily known for his comedic roles play such a sad character immediately produced emotion and intrigue. I cannot stress enough just how much using Jim Carrey makes the movie feel that much more real.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of those movies that I find small details in that I had previously overlooked with every rewatch, which makes the story even richer, as it highlights the way the director uses his creativity to tell the story. It’s a movie that makes me think to an extreme, and I could write so much about it. However, there are just so many layers to it; it would take forever to organize all of my thoughts to tell the story cohesively. Even now, I am struggling with how I should format this article in a way that won’t sound like I’m throwing ideas left and right. However, in this article, I will be talking about the overall basis of this movie, as well as Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet’s characters’ relationship timeline. In the second part, I will be focusing more on my own interpretation of the movie’s ending and meaning as a whole. There will be SPOILERS ahead.
Setting the Stage
So, for starters, what is this movie about? In the romantic sci-fi movie, we follow Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), a melancholic man, waking up in his home, disoriented and confused, listening to the surrounding cars outside his window. On his way to the train station for work, Joel notices a dent in his car, bolstering his already poor mood, which was instigated by the arrival of the dreaded Valentine’s Day. Within the first few minutes of the movie, the audience quickly gathers that Joel is a pretty uptight guy, which is why, when he impulsively skips work to take a train to Montauk, we catch on that there’s something going on, which becomes even more evident when Joel shares, “Took a train out to Montauk. I don’t know why. I’m not an impulsive person.”
After hearing this statement, we see Joel walking on the beach, looking lost, before allowing himself to sit down and write in his notebook, which, to his surprise, has pages torn out of it, an action he doesn’t recall performing himself. Thus, his present entry becomes the first one he’s written in two years. A little later on, on that same beach, a woman with blue hair in an orange sweater catches Joel’s eye, who we come to know as Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet). For the first 20 minutes of the movie, we follow these two characters meet each other for the first time and quickly fall in love. We witness them engage in conversation in Clementine’s home and lie on a frozen lake to gaze at constellations, which occurs in a period of just two days.
However, there’s an unexpected catch: these two have already met, had a relationship, and broken up.
Joel underwent a procedure the night before the movie’s beginning to erase all of his memories of Clementine, which he requested after learning that, quickly after their breakup, Clem underwent the same procedure to erase her memories of Joel.
After the first 20 minutes of the movie, we begin to really see the story of Clem and Joel, which is told through his memories, in reverse order, as they are actively being erased during the procedure.
Relationship timeline, told through Clementine’s hair
During Clementine and Joel’s “first” meeting on Valentine’s Day, Clementine mentions that her hair changes a lot. This is actually a key detail that provides insight into their first relationship. Another thing to consider is that we may assume that the two dated for at least one year; as mentioned earlier, Joel’s last journal entry was two years ago, and numerous pages in his notebook were torn out, which, it turns out, he did before his procedure to avoid confusion and rid himself of all reminders of Clementine.
Again, we see this story from Joel’s memories, so as his memories of Clem are being erased, we jump from Clem having orange hair, red hair, green hair, and, finally, her present-day blue hair. Essentially, many have shared that Clem’s hair is a sort of metaphor for the changing seasons, representing the stages of her and Joel’s relationship.
When Joel and Clementine first actually meet, she has green hair. If we are thinking about the seasons, we can associate this color with spring, during which everything is new and full of life. During this stage, Joel and Clem are in their beginning. However, we only get to see a little bit of this green hair, as it’s one of the last memories that Joel has erased from his memory.
Clem’s red hair can be associated with summer, a season of fun and passion. A reason we may not see much of her green hair could be a result of, again, Clem’s impulsiveness. When Clem and Joel meet again in the present, they quickly fall in love; the same thing happened in the past. She went from green hair to quickly having red hair, signifying the rapid progression of their relationship, which results in a wonderful stage in which they share many sweet moments. One of such sweet moments includes when Joel and Clementine are at a movie drive-in, making fun of the romance movie by making up their own dialogue. In this scene, they’re in love, having fun. Another example would be when the two first lie down on the frozen lake; Clem has her red hair, and Joel expresses that he is so happy he could die.
Clem’s orange hair, or fading orange hair, can be associated with autumn, the season of falling leaves, or, in the case of Joel and Clementine’s relationship, the season of Joel and Clementine’s fading relationship. A particular memory of Clem sporting her fading orange hair includes the one in which the couple is eating at an Asian restaurant, and Clementine, annoyed at Joe, tells him to clean the shower drain. The last memory Joel has of Clementine is her with her fading orange hair on the night of their breakup. It turns out that the dent that Joel sees at the beginning of the movie is actually a result of Clem’s carelessness towards him and their relationship.
And lastly, Clem’s blue hair. Unlike her other hair colors, Joel doesn’t have any memory of Clementine with her blue hair, as he meets her with this new hair post-procedure. Clem’s blue hair is associated with winter, cold, and bare trees. This blue hair signifies Clem’s grief after the relationship and desire to forget the man she once loved, which leads her to erase him. This brings us back to the present.
Closing
Whether you have watched the movie or not, I hope you enjoyed this article and that it has inspired you to watch the movie with these thoughts in mind. As stated, it took me many rewatches to catch certain details in this film and many video essays to better organize the many layers of this story. I hope you join me in the second part of this article series, in which I hope to discuss my overall interpretation of Clementine and Joel’s relationship and what this movie shares with us all.