Interesting to Think About!

Rating: 9/10 (25 November 2019)

This film is really interesting to watch. It makes the viewer consider parts of the human psyche and ask themselves a question- if you had the chance to forget a bad memory, would you take it?
Throughout the movie, Joel is having the memory-erasing procedure done after his ex-girlfriend, Clementine, erased him from her memory. He begins to realize that he doesn't want to lose his memories of Clementine; it's worth it to remember the pain, because the good times still happened. Throughout the second act of the film, Joel and the Clementine from his memories are trying to hide from the procedure. Unfortunately, they are unable to. His memories of her are erased.
In the last half hour of the film, two very important things happen. First, Joel and Clementine meet again, revealing that the scene from the start of the film is actually the day after their memories are erased. They are quickly heading down the same route as before when the second important thing happens; Mary, the assistant at Lacuna, (the memory-erasing business), sends every recipient of the memory-erasing procedure the tape of their first visit. These tapes recorded all of the things that those people wanted to erase from their memories. This throws a wrench into Clementine and Joel's relationship, but they overcome it and decide to stay together.
There are a few questions that arise from these plot points; what's going to happen with Clementine and Joel's relationship? And did Mary do the right thing?
Well, first of all, I believe that Clementine and Joel would stay together, but not for very long. They'd have a tumultuous relationship, which would last about the same as their previous relationship, and ultimately have a violent breakup. However, I don't think they would redo the procedure, knowing that they might just find their way back to each other. They acknowledge at the end of the film that they're not right for each other, but that they want to experience the relationship anyway.
Second, I don't think that Mary did the right thing in mailing out the tapes. The problem with this situation is that you could argue that what she did was ethical or unethical. There may have been occasions where the clients realized they didn't want to erase their memories, and would want the tapes back, but there definitely were some clients who were forced to remember things that were painful or even life-ruining. Mary no longer agreed with the practice of erasing memories, but there were other things that she could have done. She could have spoken to the press and attempted to ruin the company's reputation, instead of possibly ruining the lives of its former clientele. Of course, without her intervention, Joel and Clementine's relationship could form a cycle; they get together, then break up, then forget each other, then get together, and so on, and so on until they no longer can. I still believe that what she did was not ethical however, as a cycle wouldn't be formed if she ruined the company's reputation.