Love hurts  so it goes!

Rating: 8/10 (9 November 2014)

I've seen this film a few times over the years but it resonated deeply with me this time round. Although beautifully shot and intriguingly dreamlike to watch (more so on subsequent viewings) The story can feel achingly depressing if you hold a conventional view of love and relationships. The beauty I find in this film is that concept that love is an uncontrollable force of it own. It can't be removed by canceling out memories, or artificially created by constructing experiences. Clementine (Winslet) and Joel (Carey), when meeting for the second time, cannot stop the relationship from developing even though they've had a clear and depressing foreshadowing of whats to come. Mary (Kirsten Dunst) doesn't stop being in love with her married boss after wiping all memories of the relationship, and in contrast Patrick (Eilijh Wood) can't make Clem fall in love with him by recreating experiences from her relationship with Joel.
In short; love hurts and there's nothing that we can do about it, thats either depressing or liberating depending on your frame of mind.