movies like eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

Joel hates that she doesn’t recognize him. It’s Valentine’s Day, the busiest day for memory-wiping services according to Lacuna’s bouncy secretary, Mary Svevo (Kirsten Dunst). Impulsive Clementine wants to wipe the trauma from her mental record, and not deal with the post-trauma. So why doesn’t it work out between them? Is she too flighty? Is Joel too listless? They destruct over a difference of natures. They live a whole life together in a moment. For folks that have no more inkling of each other’s happiness than their own, the combination of Joel’s not knowing and Clementine’s sureness gives them the easy grace of old lovers. He meets Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) and gets swept up in her cheeky eyes and candid manhandling into a spontaneous relationship. Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) doesn’t know why he ditched work for a trip to Montauk – he is bedazzled with himself in that situation, secretly moved by some unknown spiritual desire to a place he recognizes but doesn’t know. Eternal Sunshine becomes a universal truth of our triumphs, and our troubles, through a fantasy of technology that's so kooky it might as well be real.Ĭharlie Kaufman, whose screenplays supersede the directors that take them over, uses Shakespearean fantasy techniques – he imagines our dreams as opportunities to tell us about who we really are, or who we would be with enough power to act on our ambitions.

It’s established and used as an emotional one. Lacuna is the device that makes the film work not only because of its plot function but because it is never explained as a scientific contraption. Despite having all the technology in the world, in this movie, the best thing we can think to do with it is forget each other. A romcom in which two conflicted lovers try to forget each other using drugs would differ from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind only by effectiveness. We have real-life Lacunas that differ only by efficiency. Patients may find themselves sitting in the crossroads wondering how they got there, living life like a dream they can’t remember, or someone else's grand adventure. Possible side effects include a kind of wistful longing, the feeling of being a stranger in your own life, having to choose between two paths you recognize but don't know.

If you want to forget a trauma, a beloved pet, or even a whole person, you can do it.

Lacuna, the company that creates the existential crisis in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, advertises that they can put a gap in the manuscript of your life.

Movies like eternal sunshine of the spotless mind