Summary of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Jim Carey and Kate Winslet Star in the Award Winning Film
Jul 10, 2009
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind begins with Joel Barish (Jim Carey) narrating the story. He decides to skip work and head to Montauk for no reason. He gives the impression that he is lonely, and also notices that there is a dent in the side of his car that wasn’t there before.
On the train to Montauk, he meets Clementine, an eccentric girl with blue hair. They talk and go to her place so she can pick up her toothbrush before going back to his place. While waiting for her, a stranger to Joel (Patrick, played by Elijah Wood), comes to his car window with a shocked look on his face and asks why he is there.
Getting Erased
The movie then flips back to a few days earlier, when Joel enters the bookstore Clementine works at and she doesn’t recognize him and is kissing Patrick. He then finds out that she has had him erased from her mind, and so he decides to have her erased from his as well.
He takes everything he has that will remind him of her and takes it to the doctor who will erase his memory, Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson). He then shares all his memories with Clementine on a tape recording. The doctor tells Joel that the erasing will be done that night so that when he awakens in the morning, everything will seem normal.
Joel’s Memories Played Backward
The next portion of the film involves Joel moving through his memories with Clementine, starting with the most recent and moving backward. In his memory, she has orange hair (this can help with identifying where the movie is, as it flips from present time to past to future continually). As he goes through the memories, they all start to disappear around him. Houses and rooms fall apart, and people become faceless and vanish. It is also discovered that Clementine had wrecked Joel’s car and was responsible for the dent.
He eventually realizes that he doesn’t want to lose his memories of her, and so they look for a place to hide: his childhood memories. Here, Clementine hides in memories of humiliation, but these memories are soon erased as well.
In the memory of how they met, she has green hair and they break into a beach house at Montauk together. She is too impulsive, and it makes him nervous. This difference appears to be what leads to their eventual breakup.
While Joel is Sleeping and Conclusion
Stan (Mark Ruffalo) and Patrick are the people assigned to erase Joel’s memory. While Joel is in his bed and his memories, Patrick reveals that he fell in love with Clementine while they were erasing her memory and has in turn been using Joel’s things that remind him of Clementine to help him win her heart. Clementine calls Patrick in a panic so he leaves, and Mary, the secretary, comes to be with Stan.
They drink and hang out until they realize Joel’s erasing has gone wrong, at which time they have to call Harold, who finishes the job. It is then revealed that Mary had had an affair with Harold and her memory had been erased. She finds her tape and steals all the others, at which point she sends everyone who has had their memory erased the tape they recorded of the memories.
The movie then picks up where it started at the beginning, with Joel waiting while Clementine gets her toothbrush. She gets her mail on the way out, which contains her memory tape. She puts it in the car's player, and Joel thinks it’s a trick, so he kicks her out of the car. She then searches for him and finds his apartment, where he is listening to his tape.
In the end, this film shows how Joel and Clementine can start anew with their clean slate, much like the Alexander Pope quote the film is named after:
"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."
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