The greatest screen romances are usually about failure, not happily ever afters. Love sacrificed. Love unrequited. Love forbidden by social mores or bad timing or the tectonic forces of history. Think Casablanca. Brief Encounter. In the Mood for Love. The Age of Innocence. Moonlight. Considered another way, though, they’re powerful because they end so pristinely, before the banal hassles and petty fissures of everyday life make a mess of things. Give a relationship enough time and Before Sunrise turns into Before Midnight.
One of the reasons why Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, now 20 years old, ranks among the best love stories of the 21st century is that it makes the unique argument that failure is an essential, precious part of romantic experience. It’s only human to want that pain to go away, but the film suggests that literally making it so would be a wish on a monkey’s paw, offering some short-term relief, perhaps, but with unanticipated long-term consequences. People usually have many more failed relationships before one that succeeds, after all, and the accumulation of experience and memory not only means something, but that meaning isn’t static. Bitter moments can turn bittersweet.
