As this discussion focuses entirely on the ending of the movie, and plot points leading up to it, I don’t think it’d make sense to have the whole durn thread be a series of black boxes. So, there will be spoilers. Lots of them. OK?
Ok.
So. At the end of the movie we have Clem and and Joel talking in the hallway. Clem points out that she and Joel aren’t ever going to get along, that she’ll get bored with him because that’s what she does and he’ll find flaws with her because that’s what he did. After that they both say “okay”. Now, virtually everybody I’ve ever spoken to thinks that signifies that they’re going to get back together and simply tollerate each other’s flaws. But from the first time I saw the movie, I figured it meant that they’d decided they were simply not going to work out as a couple, and had accepted that.
Yeah, I think they’re getting back together–a bit more self-aware this time around–and maybe even a bit more wary, but still very conscious of the undeniable connection they feel for each other. It won’t be the same as before (and it still might not work out), but there was obviously much about what they shared that was valuable to them.
It means they’re going to get back together and then still not accept eachother’s flaws and it won’t work out forever but that isn’t what’s important. They’re going into it realizing that things get bad and fall apart but that’s part of life, and relationships ending is just what happens sometimes. They know there’s still something wonderful and meaningful to them to be had, even if it isn’t perfect and doesn’t last forever.
Clementine TELLS Joel, explicitly, that in the long run, their relationship is doomed. Eventually he’s sure to get sick of her, and she’s sure to dump him, because that’s how her relationships always end.
When Joel says, “Okay,” he’s not saying “But we LOVE each other, and it will be DIFFERENT this time!” He’s saying, “Yeah, well, we probably will make each other miserable eventually… but I’m willing to risk that, because you make me very happy right now.”
No, she doesn’t say that explicitly. (And I’m not saying that to be pedantic, but because I just watched the scene again and I think the wording is important.) She says that she’s not perfect and he will find things to be annoyed at with her, and she’s going to get bored with him and feel trapped. He responds, “Okay,” and then she says “Okay” and they both laugh.
I guess you could interpret that to mean that they went their separate ways, but that doesn’t really fit in with the whole rest of the movie and would make the whole thing kind of pointless. The bulk of the movie is about how true love of a person is more than just individual memories and happy moments – it’s the whole relationship, both good and bad. Joel decides halfway through the process that he doesn’t want to lose her, even if it means holding onto all the bad memories. And I think the fact that they found each other again even after “erasing” each other, implies that they’re soulmates, destined to be together.
It’s contrasted with Kirsten Dunst’s character’s crush on Tom Wilkinson, which wasn’t “real” because it was one-sided. And Mark Ruffalo’s crush on Dunst, because he never acted on it. And Elijah Wood’s creepy obsession with Clementine, because he’s just saying the words and not being genuine.
The idea is that the individual memories and moments aren’t what make up the relationship, there’s something else. And the “something else” outlasts annoyances, arguments, memory wipes, hearing the other’s faults played out on tape, and the loss of that initial passion and excitement.
Ditto. They realize that it probably won’t work out, but say what the Hell… let’s do it anyway. Because it may end up bad, but it’ll be an interesting ride.
In an early draft of the screenplay, Kaufman had them reuniting and breaking up (and having memories erased) again and again; the character played by Dunst ends up writing a book (called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, natch) and having it rejected by a publisher in the far future.
My take; in the end, they realize that they are perfectly dysfunctional for one another and accept each other’s flaws as well as their positive attributes. (And they probably go through the erasure process again…and again…and again.)
Also, a continuity error: At one point, Dunst, answering the phone, explains to a prospective client that they can’t erase her memory again, as they have a policy against doing it more than three times in a month. Given that the erasure process naturally includes memories of the consultation with Lacuna, how the hell would that client know they’d already been wiped?
The spoiler notwithstanding, a great movie; and Kaufman is really a funny guy in a quiet “don’t look at me” kind of way. I’ve seen him at the grocery store several times and he always looks intimidated by the eggplant and nervous that the peppers are going to jump out and attack him; I think he tends to stay closer to the citrus section. (I don’t have the heart to tell him how I was onced attacked by an island display of lemons.)
Now, who here knows what happened to the Swamp Ape?
They were going to get back together, knowing that it wasn’t going to last, knowing that it would fall through horribly, knowing that in the long run they couldn’t accept each others’ flaws…
But also, knowing that it was worth the memory.
Or what Ooner said.
I thought that when all the tapes and items were returned to their original owners, the jig was basically up, and the erasure process would never happen to anyone again.
IIRC, the last shot in the movie (the two of them running down the beach into the distance) is repeated several times, implying that even IF they did erase each other over and over again, the erasure would never be complete, and they’d still be in love. But in actuality, the Lacuna office has been shut down.
I mean, hasn’t it? What did I miss?
The client wouldn’t know. But Kirsten Dunst knew, so she told the client, “Sorry, no can do.”
Heh, everybody seems to see the end differently than I do.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Well, not exactly pointless. Over the course of the movie, we see how Joel and Clem’s relationship disintegrated. The resteraunt scene and the argument they had about her having kids stand out in my mind.
The movie starts, pretty much, with him being devestated that she’s left him. Including some absolutely heartwrenching sobbing that Joel does in his car.
With that in mind, it seemed that the movie was saying that sometimes people do have a connection, and a real spark, but that it’s not meant to be. I thought that by the end of the movie both of them had come to accept that, and it was important that Joel was the first to say “okay” because he’d finally realized that he couldn’t keep holding onto the memories as if they were still the present. Although they were his real experiences, and not to be forgotten, he couldn’t hold the idealized mental image of Clem because the reality was that they were just incompatible.
I was never sure if they were getting back together or not. I want them to get back together.
I think the idea is basically that you’ve got to take the good with the bad. If you throw out the bad memories then you forget the good ones as well.
I just saw this movie for the first time last night. Fantastic movie, btw! My interpretation of the ending was the same as most of you: They were staying together and accepting each others faults.
If you don’t mind, I have a question about the beginning:
How did Stan and Patrick immobilize Joel so easily to start the erasure procedures?
We see Stan and Patrick following Joel home. They wait until he turns off the lights. “Showtime” says Stan. They immediately walk into Joel’s apartment and find him lying on the floor, unconscious. Prior to this, we see Joel take some pills and become dizzy. I’m assuming that the pills he took knocked him out.
Now, how did Stan and Patrick know that Joel would be unconscious when they entered the apartment? Did they know he took certain pills every night, so they switched them with something else? Are there other clues, that I missed, that point to something else?
They know the things that drove them apart last time haven’t gone away. But the big difference is that this time around they know what they are. Whether they can overcome them is up to them.
The pills are a sedative, part of the erasure process. If you notice, Joel takes the bottle out of a pharmacy bag (indicating that he just picked them up) and takes them in order to pass out and allow the technicians to perform the erasure uninterrupted.
Actually, what I got from it is that we’re willing to overlook (or do not see) a partner’s flaws in the beginning, but those irritations become cummulative over time and overwhelm what we like about the person. Notice that in the beginning of the erasure, Joel wants the memories to disappear, but as the process goes on and the memories get better (the process erases from most current backward) he regrets the procedure and wants it to stop, trying to hide Clem in memories of childhood, embarassment, et cetera (and presumably losing these memories in the process.) I think if you went through this procedure too many times you’d end up losing most of your memories by tangential association with the primary memories being erased. If you notice, in the “beginning” of the film, when Joel meets Clem on the train (chronologically after the erasure) he doesn’t remember Huckleberry Hound or the association of the name Clementine (the song, "My Darling Clementine) with it, even though it is revealed later (in their chronological first meeting) that Huckleberry Hound was his favorite cartoon in childhood…so, apparently the erasure took away his memories of Huckleberry as being too closely associated with Clem.)
The question I have is, how did Joel and Clem know to meet (again) in Montauk? Sure, Clem keeps reminding him during the erasure process, but that’s just Joel’s imagination of Clem. Is this supposed to be an indication of Fate?
More an indication of being so in tune with each other that subconsciously they knew that’s where the other would go and where they would meet again. Persumably Clem had similar memories/dreams that had Joel saying the same.
I missed that. I apparently was confused by the timelines, as well. I assumed that at the point where Patrick knocks on the car window, and talks to Joel (“What are you doing here?”, etc.), both Joel and Clem had already completed their, initial, erasures. They both don’t know each other at this point, right?
Patrick has fallen in love with Clem, and then sees that Joel has just pulled up to Clem’s house, with Clem, when they were not suppossed to know each other. Patrick realizes that Joel and Clem, dispite all odds, have found each other again and will probably hook up. Something must have gone wrong with the initial erasure. So Patrick sets out to start another erasure process on Joel, so he is free to pursue Clem.
He tells Stan. Stan tells Howard that something went wrong with the initial erasure, and they must do it again on Joel, without Joel knowing about it.
Stan and Patrick follow Joel home and wait for him to take the pills that were planted there. The second erasure process starts.
The tapes that Clem and Joel hear at the end are memories from the first erasure!
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Boy, I really blew that one, huh.
