What’s not to love about sci-fi meeting romance? It certainly is a creative way to push a romance film and make it stand out from the plethora of cliche romance films out there. As I mentioned before, I’ve never been a big fan of romance as a genre BUT ever since I started my blog I’ve come to learn that there are exceptions to my preferences.
The film starts out pretty standard……standard to the audience anyway. The film’s complex introduction scene really is interesting once you connect the dots and realize the intro is actually the OUTRO. The movie carries on in a series of flashbacks connecting to the present. It’s an interesting timeline in which the plot is simultaneously filling in the puzzles in a very nonlinear fashion. But moving swiftly on, the film starts off with an ordinary introverted guy who runs into an eccentric extroverted woman. The two characters click immediately, albeit in an unorthodox way. To the average outsider peering into their relationship, you’d assume that these two are a bit too familiar with each other. Between that unique narrative of storytelling and the fascinating sci-fi plot, it’s difficult to NOT get engrossed in this film.
Joel and Clementine are the centric characters who are former lovers and whose relationship ended on bad terms. Once Joel discovers Clementine has erased him from her memory with the aid of cutting edge technology, he decides that he too should erase her from his memory. The flashbacks done in the film are from the perspective of Joel watching in real time as his memories of Clementine are being erased. The memories start off bad, towards the end of the relationship when everything falls apart, and goes backwards to the start of their relationship: the good times. Joel starts regretting his decision to erase Clementine as he watches the nostalgia wash over him. He slowly remembers the reasons he loved this woman dearly. This nonlinear fashion of memories builds the concept that bad memories, similarly to how our brain works in real life, look minuscule in the presence of good times. Joel stops caring about the awful arguments and finds them minor, because all he really wants to do is be back with Clementine once more. The film jumps back between Joel’s memories being erased, and Joel in present time with Clementine. The two, both now having lost memory of each other, start to fall in love again. The concept of unrequited love reuniting once more in such a profoundly unique way is absolutely stunning. The best part is that we can watch as these former lovers fall in love once more and watch as those tender intimate feelings of love feel and look as powerful just like before when they first met.
The cinematography of this film is to die for. It uses the background to create an every bigger story and honestly it’s so difficult for me to describe how each scene fluctuates in and out of each other so naturally without giving you an example of just what I mean. So here you go:
Go to 00:56 timestamp and watch as that scene naturally smooths in from one scene to another. Joel finding out Clementine no longer remembers him, and not only that but has also moved on from him and is dating another man; it just completely crushes Joel. The scene turning off the background and transitioning to the next scene carries so much meaning. You could just feel the pain, the anguish, and the utter gravity of Joel’s entire world just crashing down. All that in just one scene. This isn’t just one instance of the film’s beautiful plot being carried in the discreet background. There’s loads more but here is another one of my favorites:
This scene is just one of Joel’s memories being erased, and if you notice carefully: the background of books is slowly turning white from being erased. It happens gradually and it isn’t noticeable until the reality of the situation Joel is in hits you. The scene beautifully ends with Clementine disappearing too.
The film ends on an interesting note. The two lovers discover they have dated in the past and discover their old arguments and negativity they once held for each other when they broke up. The difference this time, however, is that despite knowing all this information, the two decide to jump into a relationship with each other anyway. They accept the risk and would do it all over again because they love each other THAT much. We’ll never know if their second go at a relationship succeeds or fails, all that matters is that they’re in it for the wild ride together. The film beautifully sums up the meaning of love. I think the best way to end this post is the ending scene:
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
film raves 