Film Structure Analysis #11 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

This is a top ten all time film for me personally. Love it. Love it. Really love it. Honestly, I cannot believe that someone came up with a way to put this story, these emotions, these moments into a film. It creates a hyper complex story and world with seemingly regular ingredients.

Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, and Pierre Bismuth's story is great. Kaufman's script is unreal. Gondry's direction is also unreal.

When I try to breakdown the story structure, I am impressed with how clean our pacing is, how clear our story points turns and move forward. This is a story about love, about what is or isn't worth it about love and loss, happiness and pain. It is a story of a man who has been erased from his ex's mind. His core question--is this real, should I do the same, can I do the same, is this what I want or need? It is quite abstract yet simple at the same time.

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This film has a fake opening. Joel and Clementine meet on a train, travel overnight to and from the frozen lake, then stop by Clementine's. We seemingly flashforward (actually a flashback) to Joel realizing Clementine has erased him from her memory. Joel researches this absurd idea, finds it is real, and decides to do the same, a sort of romantic revenge perhaps.

Act 1 transitions into Act 2 as Joel moves forward with the memory procedure. Here we move into answering our core questions. What will happen as Joel experiments with this? What an intriguing mystery. The medical team does their work as the audience moves through Joel's good and bad memories of Clementine.

At the midpoint we get a glimpse of a possible ending, a reversal in action. At almost exactly half way through, after seeing so much good and true beauty from the memories he is erasing, Joel decides he doesn't want this anymore. "I want to call it off!" New reality. We are now inside our mind amidst a sort of thriller style chase and run, trying desperately to hide Clementine somewhere, trying desperately to keep our memory of her.

The second half of Act 2 is this--Joel and Clem running, hiding, fighting the procedure, slowly losing. The audience sees the beauty the two of them had, sees their issues and pain but also the truth, the union, the harmony and sweetness.

Act 2 transitions into Act 3 after we lose this. The procedure concludes and Clem has been erased. Their past lost. It is heavy, sad. As we walk through this final act we see Joel and Clementine meet at the beach (arguably could be considered part of Act 2 perhaps, but I lean not). They have accepted their fate. We wake, meet Clem on the train, take the overnight travel to the ice lake, and return... Only to come home to the audio tapes that Mary sent out to all the patients. Joel and Clem are rattled, they are creeped out and confused. As they are walking away from each other, Joel asks Clem to wait... just wait...

There is a great moment here.
We both have issues... We are both unlovable maybe... We are at least surely not perfect.
"Okay."
"Okay."
They try love again.

Be well.
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(words and image are original)