Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind Ending & Real Meaning Explained

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind Ending & Real Meaning Explained

Michael Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has an ending that’s both ambiguous and satisfying. Here’s what happens and what it means.

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The ending to 2004 sci-fi romance Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind brings the story of Joel & Clementine to close, while also leaving their future wide open. Directed by Michael Gondry from a script by Charlie Kauffman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind follows Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine Kruczynski, two strangers who meet on a train and then fall in and out of love. The pair both undergo treatments to have their memories of the other removed, although not before recording tapes to remind them of every little thing they hated about the other. Rather than freeing them from the pain the relationship left behind, it only makes matters worse.

Ultimately, over the course of the movie, Joel and Clementine do find their way back to each other, although it’s not an easy path, nor a linear one. Eternal Sunshine plays around with both time and genre, with large portions taking place in Joel’s mind. As the story pushes forward, events replay with certain blanks being filled in, and their relationship has started to blossom – again to the audience, but for the first time to them. Outside of its central characters, side plots involving Lacuna, the company who carry out the procedures, then begin to develop and coalesce, bringing everything together in the film’s final third.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has been celebrated as a modern masterpiece since its release, and a large part of that is down to its ending. At once ambiguous and satisfying, and hopeful but with the potential of more devastation to follow, it’s a stunning climax that lingers long after the credits have rolled. Here’s what happens and what it all really means.

What Happens In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s Ending

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, perhaps unsurprisingly, has both Joel and Clementine learning the truth not only of what happened to them, but what they thought about each other before undergoing the procedure. Having both made their way to Montauk, which itself stemmed from a memory Joel had during his treatment, they receive the tapes thanks to Mary, a technician at Lacuna, discovering that she herself underwent the memory erasure procedure to forget about her affair with the head of the company, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak. Mary mails out all the tapes, and eventually both Joel and Clementine come to listen. Although they’re horrified at the things they said – and felt – about one another, especially because to them the relationship is so new and exciting, they seemingly decide to give things a go (or rather, another go). Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ends with them agreeing to start again/for the first time, before closing out with a loop of the pair in the snow.

Why Joel & Clementine Get Back Together In Eternal Sunshine’s Ending

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s ending not only sees Clementine come within a minute of walking out of Joel’s life, but it even acknowledges that the pair getting back together is a potentially huge mistake. While Joel may insist that he “can’t think of anything” he doesn’t like about her, Clementine responds that he will, and that she’ll “get bored…and feel trapped.” And yet, despite that, the closing moments of the film do ostensibly see them getting back together despite those risks; both are accepting of it, as evidenced by the repetition of “okay”, but they’re going to try. Although the film isn’t explicit, which is by its own design, and that “okay” could really mean “okay, let’s not try again”, the greater implication is that they are back together at this point. But knowing what they do now, it begs a fair question of why they’re going to go through with it, despite having heard where it’ll lead.

Joel and Clementine make the romantic choice at the end of Eternal Sunshine: that it’s better to love, lose, love, and potentially lose again than it is to not have those real memories. That, yes, it might not work out, but right now that’s all part of the adventure they can go on together, as they re-discover who the other person is, and also find a big part of themselves that’s been missing too. Even if they do break-up again, they cannot be complete without knowing what it’s like to be with each other, because it’s a very literal missing piece of their respective puzzles.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is about memory – and so too is life, but that goes for both good and bad. It’s all those memories that make up a person’s life, and Joel and Clementine need that if they’re to go on. Things could end up different this time, because there’s no way of knowing exactly how they will play out, especially with prior knowledge of these things (which could serve to help or severely hinder the relationship). In the end, they choose to take a leap of faith with one another, and to decide to explore their feelings and see where they lead, rather than just shutting them off completely and being miserable again. It may end in heartache, but they also know it’ll bring happiness, laughter, and love into their lives, so it has to be worth a shot.

Is Joel & Clementine’s Relationship Doomed To Fail Again

Of course, with Joel and Clementine entering into this new relationship, the audience is every bit as aware of the potential dangers as they are. And while the choice they make is the right, albeit more difficult, one, that doesn’t guarantee a happy ending for them. There are no hints in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s ending that this is a couple built to last, or that things will end any differently than before. Indeed, if them getting back together is to highlight the oft-cyclical nature of life and the way people can repeat mistakes, then it would be easy to argue fairly strongly that they will break-up once more.

Having witnessed Joel and Clementine’s relationship, it is clear there are many ways in which they’re not compatible, with almost countless things about them that will irritate and wear down the other. And since it didn’t work before, it could mean it won’t work again. But at the same time, part of making mistakes is to take the opportunity to grow and learn from them; to do things differently. Often in life that way be with other people, but Joel and Clementine have a rare second chance to start anew together. Part of the beauty of the ending is that ambiguous, bittersweet nature to it, where a person’s interpretation can come down less to what the film presents, which could go either way, and more the kind of person you are yourself, allowing the viewer to take what they want from it without trading on delivering on the film’s overall themes and messages, and still giving a satisfying sense of closure.

The Meaning Of Mary Sending Out The Lacuna Tapes

One of the most decisive moments in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind comes not from Joel or Clementine, but Mary (Kirsten Dunst), the Lacuna employee who sends out the tapes. While this serves a crucial narrative function – to effectively give Joel and Clementine their memories of one another back – it also has a greater thematic purpose as well. Mary’s choice isn’t just of her lashing out in anger at Dr. Mierzwiak and an attempt at revenge – though it is both of those things, not least because of the damage it will do to the company – but because of how she gives Joel, Clementine, and all the other Lacuna patients the choice that she never had.

Mary had to discover the hard way of the memory erasure procedure she went through, of the affair with Dr. Mierzwiak, and of it happening all over again. This regret at experiencing the same pain twice (and quite specifically, the pain of hearbreak), without first being given the opportunity to learn and grow from it, is a key part of the human experience that she was robbed of. That’s not something Mary can rectify with herself, because she went through the treatment alone and because of who she tried to forget, but it’s something other people – not least Joel and Clementine – can learn from.

Joel & Clementine Might’ve Had Their Memories Erased Multiple Times

One of the major questions left behind by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s ending is whether what we’re seeing play out is the first and/or only time Joel and Clementine have had their memories wiped. The cyclical, non-linear structure of the film’s narrative itself suggests that this is a real possibility, and that Joel and Clementine have walked down this path many times before. The key signifier of this comes in the movie’s closing sequence, which sees Joel and Clementine in the snow in Montauk. The scene briefly plays, and then jarringly cuts back to the beginning, happening several times over on a loop. This suggests that Joel and Clementine themselves are trapped in this very loop, of finding one another, falling in love, starting to resent each other, breaking up and having their memories wiped, and then finding their way back to each other again, the process beginning anew each time.

Even the weather fits this: snow itself can represent a fresh start, a blanket covering what went before, that then melts away. If this is the case, then Joel and Clementine could have been through this an untold number of times. The notion is also supported by Kauffman’s original script for the film (via Screenplays For You) which, among its differences (including a framing device of Mary trying to sell a manuscript of the story), ends with a much older version of Clementine, whose file has “a list of fifteen dates of previous erasures stretching back fifty years, all of them involving Joel Barish.” Although Kauffman shifted away from this, and into something that is at once perhaps more ambiguous and more hopeful (and works better, in truth), it supports the notions the film itself does have in that Joel and Clem have been through this before. That itself, however, does nothing to undercut their journey, but instead shows the powerful connection they share, and how they will keep finding their way back to one another.

What Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s Ending Really Means

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s ending doesn’t just bring together its various narrative beats and provide a resolution (of sorts) for Joel and Clementine, but it also ties together the themes and deeper meanings of the movie as a whole. That Joel and Clementine seemingly choose to try again (and perhaps do so many times) helps speak to the nature and importance of memories as a tool for life lessons; that they’re something to be cherished, not erased. That itself is ultimately a choice in favor of love – and a victory for it too. Despite the pain love can cause, it’s ultimately going to be worth it for the joy and, of course, memories it will bring and leave you with. It’s an experience it is better to have than not have, which is something Joel and Clementine accept in the end.

The ending of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind then also ties into grander themes still of love, and more specifically who we love, and the choices (or lack thereof) around that. Joel and Clementine are very different people, and they bring out both the best and the worst in each other. That they are so drawn together shows that love is boundless and a person cannot choose who they love; it can be unpredictable and senseless, but that’s the way it works. What you can choose is whether you accept that love or not, and the risks that come with it and if they’re going to be worth it, which is what Joel and Clementine do in the end.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/eternal-sunshine-spotless-mind-ending-explained-joel-clementine/

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