Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Joel Barish discovers that his estranged girlfriend, Clementine Kruczynski, has undergone a procedure to have her memories of him erased by the suburban Long Island firm Lacuna. Heartbroken, he decides to undergo the same procedure. In preparation, he records a tape recounting his memories of their volatile relationship. The Lacuna employees work on Joel's brain as he sleeps in his apartment so that he will wake up with no memory of the procedure. One employee, Patrick, leaves to see Clementine; since her procedure, he has been using Clementine's memories of Joel as a guide to seduce her. While the procedure runs on Joel's brain, the technician, Stan, and the secretary, Mary, take drugs, party, and have sex. Joel re-experiences his memories of Clementine in reverse chronological order as they are erased, starting with their last fight. As he reaches earlier, happier memories, he realizes that he does not want to forget her. His mental projection of Clementine suggests that he hides her in memories that do not involve her. This halts the procedure, but Stan calls his boss, Howard, who arrives and restarts it. Joel comes to his last remaining memory of Clementine: the day they first met, on a beach in Montauk. As the memory crumbles around them, Clementine tells Joel to meet her in Montauk. In Joel's apartment, Mary tries to impress Howard through their mutual interest in poetry by reciting a verse from Eloisa to Abelard. While Stan is outside, she tells Howard she is in love with him and they kiss. Howard's wife arrives and sees them through the window. Enraged, she tells Howard to tell Mary the truth: Mary and Howard had previously had an affair, and Mary had her memories of it erased. Disgusted, Mary steals the Lacuna records and mails them to the patients, including Joel and Clementine. Joel wakes up on Valentine's Day with his memories of Clementine erased. He impulsively takes the Long Island Rail Road to Montauk and calls in sick to work. He accidentally meets Clementine on the train ride home; they are drawn to one another, and go on a date to the frozen Charles River in Boston. Joel drives Clementine home and Patrick sees the two of them, realizing they have found each other again. Joel and Clementine receive their Lacuna records from Mary and listen to their tapes together. They are shocked by the bitter memories they had of each other and almost separate again, but agree to try again. == Cast ==

• Jim Carrey as Joel Barish: A bookish introvert who enters a two-year relationship with Clementine Kruczynski. After their relationship ends, Clementine erases Joel from her memory, and he erases her from his mind in response. Charlie Kaufman depicted Joel with some of his own personality traits. To induce Carrey, an actor who typically portrayed high-energy roles, to portray a restrained character, Gondry would not allow him to improvise, a restriction he did not place on the other cast members (Carrey objected). Gondry also put Carrey off balance by giving misleading orders or by rolling the camera at the wrong time. Gondry believed this would make Carrey forget what he should do to be Joel, allowing him to go in character. Gondry saw that Carrey's emotional state at the time was "so beautiful, so broken" that he asked him to stay that way for one year to fit the character. In the documentary, Carrey commented, "That's how fucked up this business is." Nicolas Cage was Gondry's original choice to play Joel, She received the role after she was the only actress to offer criticism on the script instead of pandering to the writers. Most commentators discuss one particular example to demonstrate this criticism, wherein Clementine warns Joel she is flawed: "Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours." With her impulsiveness, emotional intensity (extreme mood changes), alcohol consumption, turbulent relationships, reckless behavior, and hasty idealization or devaluation of Joel, Clementine seems to exhibit traits of borderline personality disorder, although it is not clear whether Kaufman wrote her character with this specific diagnosis in mind. Gondry had earlier thought of casting Björk for the role of Clementine. She feared she would be emotionally affected and rejected the invitation after reading the script. Winona Ryder also met with Gondry for the role. • Kirsten Dunst as Mary Svevo: The receptionist for Lacuna who, while dating Stan Fink, has a crush on Howard Mierzwiak. While erasing Joel's memory, Howard's wife catches her kissing Howard. Howard's wife reveals Mary previously had a relationship with Howard, which Howard erased from her mind. She reacts to this information by quitting her job and mailing Lacuna's company records to its customers. In the script, Mary and Howard's relationship resulted in an unplanned pregnancy, leading to Howard pressuring Mary into an abortion, which Howard also erased from her memory. • Mark Ruffalo as Stan Fink: A technician for Lacuna who is in a relationship with Mary Svevo until the revelation of her previous relationship with Howard Mierzwiak. Ruffalo received the role of Stan after providing an "unexpected take on the role" to Gondry when he suggested Stan be a fan of the Clash and resemble Joe Strummer. • Elijah Wood as Patrick Wertz: Patrick is a technician for Lacuna who enters a relationship with Clementine by imitating Joel. They break up when Joel and Clementine begin dating for the second time. Seth Rogen auditioned for the role. • Jane Adams as Carrie Eakin: Joel's female friend. She is in a troubled relationship with Rob Eakin. • David Cross as Rob Eakin: Joel's friend. In a troubled relationship with Carrie Eakin. • Thomas Jay Ryan as Frank: Joel Barish's neighbor • Deirdre O'Connell as Hollis Mierzwiak: Howard's wife • Debbon Ayer as Mrs. Barish: Joel's mother • Ellen Pompeo as Naomi, Joel's girlfriend (deleted scene) ==Production==

Development The concept of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind came from conversations between director Michel Gondry and co-writer Pierre Bismuth in 1998. The pair had met and become friends in the early 1980s during Gondry's drumming career in the French pop group Oui Oui. Bismuth had conceived of the idea of erasing certain people from people's minds in response to a friend complaining about her boyfriend; when he asked her if she would erase that boyfriend from her memory, she said yes. Bismuth originally planned to conduct an art experiment involving sending cards to people saying someone they knew had erased the card's recipient from their memory. When he mentioned this to Gondry, they developed it into a story based on the situations that would arise if it were scientifically possible. While the writers did not believe the concept was marketable, a small bidding war began over the idea. Steve Golin of Propaganda Films purchased it on June 12, 1998, for a low seven-figure sum. Kaufman, who was responsible for writing the screenplay, did not begin immediately, instead opting to suspend writing while he was working on Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Human Nature, the last of which Gondry directed as his directorial debut. He eventually decided on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a title originating from the 1717 poem Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope. Alain Resnais's ''Je t'aime, je t'aime'' (1968) has been cited as an influence on the film. Filming and post-production , where Joel and Clementine meet each other again after the erasing of their memories|alt= The shooting of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind began in mid-January 2003 after six weeks of preparation, lasting for three months on a budget of $20 million mostly in and around New York City. The shoot was challenging for cinematographer Ellen Kuras, due to the difficulty of filming Gondry's vision, which aimed to "blend location-shoot authenticity with unpredictable flashes of whimsy". Gondry wanted available light used exclusively for the shoot. Kuras disagreed and worked around this idea by lighting the room instead of the actors and by hiding light bulbs around the set to increase light levels. Kaufman rewrote some of the script during production; thus, several differences exist between the production script and the final film. In one version of the script, Kaufman began the story 50 years in the future. An old woman who turns out to be Mary tries to drop off a bulky manuscript at a publishing house, but the publisher declines her offer. We later learn that the manuscript contains all of the memories that Lacuna had erased from its patients. This version of the film ends with an elderly Clementine once again erasing Joel. Valdís Óskarsdóttir edited the film, and she reportedly clashed with Gondry during editing. Kaufman was also very involved in the editing of the film, which was a longer process as there was little time constraint. There were a few test screenings of the film, which elicited positive reactions. ==Music==

The soundtrack for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was composed by Jon Brion, also featuring songs from artists including the Polyphonic Spree, the Willowz and Don Nelson. Hollywood Records released the soundtrack in March 2004. A cover version of the Korgis' "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" with instrumentation by Brion and vocals by Beck operates as the soundtrack's centerpiece, setting the film's tone in the opening credits, and closing the film. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Minds soundtrack received generally positive reviews. AllMusic described Brion's score as "intimate" and "evocative of love and memories". Other positive reviews noted the ambient nature of the music and lauded Beck's cover of "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime". The soundtrack's detractors criticized the album's lack of identity and its depressive atmosphere. Even among the detractors, the score's ability to mesh with the plot was lauded, an appraisal common to many reviews. == Analysis ==

Author Carol Vernallis, writing in Screen, argued that Gondry's experience in directing music videos contributed to the film's mise-en-scène and sound design. Vernallis describes some threads of the visual, aural, and musical motifs throughout the film, and how some motifs can work in counterpoint. Philosopher Christopher Grau, in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, discussed how he perceived the film to have its own defined philosophy, beyond addressing ideas of a philosophical nature. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has been aligned with a greater inspection, distinctly related to the 21st century, of memory, longing and nostalgia in science fiction films like Code 46 and 2046. The film showcases memory as fragmented and unreliable, evident by its non-linear structure. == Release ==

Marketing For promotion, a website for the fictional company Lacuna was made in 2003, which included a spoof advertisement. An official trailer for the film was released in 2004. The trailer was edited in a more comedic style than the movie itself, which may have misled viewers about the tone of the film. Box office Produced on a budget of $20 million, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind opened on March 19, 2004, in the United States, earning $8.2 million in its opening weekend from 1,353 theaters. The film placed seventh in the weekend's box office, and remained in theaters for 19 weeks, earning $34.4 million in the United States and Canada, and $38.9 million in international markets, for a total of $73.3 million worldwide. Although screenwriter Kaufman was told the film had not generated a profit, it remains his most commercially successful work, grossing more than twice as much as Adaptation (2002) and over three times as much as Being John Malkovich (1999). Home media Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was released on VHS and DVD by Universal Studios Home Video on September 28, 2004, selling a combined total of over 600,000 units on the first day. Among the add-ons included were deleted scenes. It debuted at number 11 on the VHS rental chart, as well as number three on the DVD sales chart. A two-disc Collector's Edition was later released on January 4, 2005. It was later released on HD DVD on April 24, 2007, and on Blu-ray on January 25, 2011. On July 26, 2022, Kino Lorber Studio Classics released Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray. This release included a new color grading supervised by cinematographer Ellen Kuras. ==Reception==

's performance garnered widespread critical acclaim, earning her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. On Rotten Tomatoes, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has an approval rating of 92% based on 255 reviews, with an average score of 8.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Propelled by Charlie Kaufman's smart, imaginative script and Michel Gondry's equally daring directorial touch, Eternal Sunshine is a twisty yet heartfelt look at relationships and heartache." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 89 out of 100, based on 41 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. Roger Ebert wrote: "Despite jumping through the deliberately disorienting hoops of its story, Eternal Sunshine has an emotional center, and that's what makes it work. Although Joel and Clementine ping-pong through various stages of romance and reality, what remains constant is the human need for love and companionship, and the human compulsion to keep seeking it, despite all odds." In 2010, he added it to his "Great Movies" canon, writing "The wisdom in Eternal Sunshine is how it illuminates the way memory interacts with love. We more readily recall pleasure than pain. From the hospital I remember laughing nurses and not sleepless nights. A drunk remembers the good times better than the hangovers. A failed political candidate remembers the applause. An unsuccessful romantic lover remembers the times when it worked." A. O. Scott praised it as "cerebral, formally and conceptually complicated, dense with literary allusions and as unabashedly romantic as any movie you'll ever see". Time Out concluded: "the formidable Gondry/Kaufman/Carrey/Winslet axis works marvel after marvel in expressing the bewildering beauty and existential horror of being trapped inside one's own addled mind, and in allegorising the self-preserving amnesia of a broken but hopeful heart". Winslet and Carrey received widespread praise for their performances. Winslet received multiple award nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, Claudia Puig wrote: "Winslet is wonderful as a free spirit whose hair color changes along with her moods. She hasn't had such a meaty role in a while, and she plays it just right". Ann Hornaday, in The Washington Post, said "Even when forced to wear costumes and wigs that make her look like Pippi Longstocking after an acid-fueled trip to the thrift market, Winslet maintains a reassuring equilibrium. It takes an actor of her steadiness to play someone this unhinged." Carrey also received multiple award nominations, including a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role Moira MacDonald in The Seattle Times stated "[Jim Carrey is] not bad at all — in fact, it's the most honest, vulnerable work he's ever done", while David Edelstein of Slate said "It's rarely a compliment when I refer to an actor as "straitjacketed", but the straitjacketing of Jim Carrey is fiercely poignant. You see all that manic comic energy imprisoned in this ordinary man, with the anarchism peeking out and trying to find a way to express itself." The supporting cast also received acclaim, with several reviewers, including Hornaday and Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail singling out Ruffalo's performance for praise. Critics praised Kaufman, and he won numerous awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay. and Andrew Sarris of The Observer criticized the "nonexistent character development". Gondry received praise, with Hornaday writing "the results [of Gondry using primarily in-camera effects], in their intricate detail and execution" as "nothing short of brilliant". ==Accolades==

Eternal Sunshine has continued to receive acclaim in the decades after its release. In 2017, The New York Times named it one of the greatest films of the 21st Century so far: "Charlie Kaufman's writing has the perfect equipoise of cynicism and sensitivity, and finds a perfect correlative in the director Michel Gondry's whimsical ingenuity. The only thing better than seeing it again would be wiping it from your memory and rediscovering it for the first time." The A. V. Club placed it first on its list of the best films of the 2000s, writing: "Though Kaufman is hardly a purely cerebral writer, his philosophical inquiries find an added emotional weight under Gondry's direction. Portraying the fading and flaring of love in gargantuan bookstores and on railway lines, Gondry captures a moment that's quintessentially of the 21st century, and yet timeless ... It's the rare film that shows us who we are now and who we're likely, for better or worse, forever to be." and titled the following track, "Clementine", after Kate Winslet's character, drawing lyrical inspiration from her as well. Similarly, American post-hardcore band Circa Survive referenced the film both directly and indirectly in their lyrics on their 2005 debut album Juturna, which primarily explores lead singer Anthony Green's struggles with addiction. The band Stars based the music video for their song "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" on the frozen lake scene from the film. The film's score, composed by Jon Brion, has also inspired many artists. Rapper Kanye West heard the score and chose to have Brion work on producing hit single "Gold Digger". while American rapper and record producer Mac Miller incorporated one of the tracks into his 2013 song "The Quest." American singer-songwriter Jhené Aiko cited the film as an inspiration for two songs, "Eternal Sunshine" and "Spotless Mind", featured on her 2014 debut album Souled Out. Emo rap artist Robert Lund (also known mononymously as Lund) included two portions of dialogue from the film in his 2017 single "By My Side". In South Korea, singer-songwriter Taeyeon drew from the film's themes for the music video of her 2020 EP title track, "What Do I Call You", and rapper B.I credited the movie as the inspiration behind his 2022 song "Tangerine," from Love or Loved Part.1. In 2024, American singer-songwriter Ariana Grande named her seventh studio album, Eternal Sunshine, after the film. Her music videos for the singles "Yes, And?" and "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)", along with the rest of the album and the short film Brighter Days Ahead (2025), include numerous references to the movie. Video games Kan Gao, founder of Freebird Games, said his video game To the Moon, which is about two doctors traversing the memory of an old man to fulfill his last wish, was inspired by the film. Media recognition ==See also==