Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

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This is a 2004 American romantic fantasy film about an estranged couple who have each other erased from their memories, scripted by Charlie Kaufman and directed by the french director, Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction, psychological thriller, and nonlinear narration to explore the nature of memory and romantic love. It opened in North America on March 19, 2004, and grossed over US $70 million worldwide.

Kaufman and Gondry worked on the story with Pierre Bismuth, a French performance artist. The film stars an ensemble cast starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson, Elijah Wood, Jane Adams, and David Cross.

The title is taken from the poem Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope, the story of a tragic love affair, where forgetfulness became the heroine's only comfort:

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;

The film was a critical and commercial success, developing a strong cult following and receiving a myriad of accolades, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The film was lauded by critics as one of the best and most thought-provoking films of 2004. 


In class, we watched the first half of the film and after that, we drew our own conclusions: there're so many flashbacks that it's sometimes hard to be followed and perhaps a bit aggressive too. However, I think we need to wait for the second part to understand the whole film. Meanwhile, I'd like to drop you some more lines on the same topic of our mind and memory. The following notes were taken from Straightforward Advanced Teacher's Book, by Roy Norris: "Cultural notes: Alzheimer's disease is a serious illness affecting the brain, which makes it difficult to remember things. It gets worse over time and affects older people in particular. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the film starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett. It presupposes that you can go to a clinic and have bad memories erased from your brain. In the film, Jim Carrey, whilst undergoing the treatment, fights against losing his memories. The moral is that memories are what make us what we are - even the bad ones. For more information about the movie, please click on the wikipedia word above.