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Review Culture Film & TV Suffering 17 July 2024 5 min read # Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: 20 years on Memory and the meaning of suffering. ## [Beatrice Scudeler](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/beatrice-scudeler) Beatrice writes on literature, religion, the arts, and the family. Her published work can be found [here](https://beatricescudeler.weebly.com/ "(opens in a new window)"). Share  Carrey and Winslet as Joel and Clementine. ## Our newsletter Tuesday: what's catching our eye Friday: at a glance articles [Sign up now](https://www.seenandunseen.com/sign-our-newsletter) Michel Gondry’s *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind* came out in 2004. Twenty years on, its stubborn insistence that the memory of pain gives meaning to our lives is as relevant as ever. I first watched Gondry’s cult classic earlier this year, in the midst of recovering from postnatal PTSD. When we are faced with heartbreak, it can be easy to wish that we could retreat from painful memories, hiding them away until the initial pang has seemingly died down. That was my experience, at least. But I quickly learnt that the traumatic memory of my daughter’s birth would continue to resurface until I processed it and accepted it as part of my life. Just so, *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind* teaches us that being vulnerable to suffering is a gift, that suffering itself is necessary to our moral growth, and that our ability to remember the past is an invaluable faculty of the human mind. The film begins simply, with a meeting between its protagonists, Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski. As Joel and Clementine start making small talk, they seem immediately comfortable, almost familiar with each other, and yet the atmosphere is eerie. Soon enough, we discover that Clementine was a patient at Lacuna, a clinic which erased every memory of Joel from her mind after their two-year relationship ended in a painful breakup. When Joel finds out, he asks Dr. Howard Mierzwiak, the director of Lacuna, to do the same for him. As viewers, we now start to wonder: was that meeting we witnessed their very first, or have they met again after their memories were erased, unaware that they loved each other in a ‘past’ life? This tone of disorientation continues throughout the film, and that’s what makes it so special. As Joel’s memories of Clementine are erased one by one, he realises that the removal of one’s painful experiences is in itself a kind of trauma; what promises to be a relief, turns out to be nothing more than loss. We experience this sense of disorientation and loss alongside Joel as we jump through snippets of his and Clementine’s happiest and saddest moments together, trying to piece together in our minds a linear narrative of their relationship. While this is happening, the film’s subplot focuses on Stan, Patrick, and Mary, three young people working for Lacuna. As Stan and Patrick, the ‘technicians’, work on Joel’s memory removal, Mary, Lacuna’s naive receptionist, muses on the beauty of their mission. She begins quoting aloud the passage of poetry which inspires the film’s very title, taken from Alexander Pope’s verse epistle *Eloisa to Abelard* (1717): > How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot\! > > The world forgetting, by the world forgot. > > Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind\! > > Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d. Mary has an idealistic vision of her work: she believes she is helping suffering people experience the kind of ‘eternal sunshine’ that only a ‘spotless mind’ can achieve. But the human mind is not so simple. Joel’s desire for forgetfulness quickly turns nightmarish. As he realises he has made a mistake, he starts fighting to retain the memory of his love for Clementine, but his is a hopeless quest. Dr. Mierzwiak’s intervention ensures that the procedure is completed. Left alone without Stan and Patrick, Mary confesses to the married Dr. Mierzwiak that she is in love with him. It is at this point that her idealism crumbles down. He reveals that they’ve already had an affair in the past and that she agreed to let him erase its memory from her mind. Mary is devastated. She decides that what Lacuna is doing is unethical - even if Mierzwiak technically has the patients’ consent to the procedure - and releases the clinic’s files back to the patients. It is this decision which leads Clementine and Joel, just a few days after they ‘meet’ again, to discover that they’ve already loved each other in the past. Accepting suffering and holding it in our hearts, not with bitterness, but rather with courage, requires endless patience and infinite hope. Although the script of the film doesn’t spell it out, Mary’s story emphasises that the absence of painful memories is in itself experienced as a painful loss. What’s more, it shows that, without the memory of the suffering which we have inflicted on others, and which others have inflicted on us, we are incapable of moral growth. Thanks to the knowledge of the past, Mary is able, this time around, to resist having an affair with a married man. Just so, the final scene of the film, which sees Joel and Clementine vow to renew their relationship, is hopeful not in spite of the fact that they have regained the memory of the ways in which they hurt each other in the past, but precisely because of it. Accepting suffering and holding it in our hearts, not with bitterness, but rather with courage, requires endless patience and infinite hope. But that is what we were made for. Each one of us is called to endure pain in imitation of Christ, and, out of that pain, to discover a greater capacity for sacrificial love. We make meaning out of pain: that’s what human beings do. The very last lines of *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind* perfectly express the fruits of this Christ-like acceptance. As Joel reassures Clementine that he can’t see anything he doesn’t like about her, she expresses her doubts and anxieties: ‘But you will! But you will.’, she repeats, ‘You know, you will think of things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me.’ Joel and Clementine look at each other, and, after a pause, they simply say to each other: ‘Okay’. Their ‘okay’ is not an indication that they are doomed to repeat old mistakes. Rather, it signals a new choice: this time, when their relationship becomes difficult, they won’t just run away; this time, they will face discomfort, heartbreak, and disappointment, armed with the knowledge that seeking a sense of permanence by loving another person completely is an inherently valuable pursuit. In accepting the most traumatic parts of our past we grow closer to God; and in bravely deciding to look ahead to the future with hope, we catch a glimpse of the unadulterated joy which we will finally experience in God’s eternity. Help share Seen & Unseen *"Seen & Unseen is a liberating point of view which has opened my mind to new possibilities."* All our content is free for anyone who wants to read it, thanks to our amazing community of regular supporters. [Give now](https://www.seenandunseen.com/give) ### Related articles ### [Carving joy and suffering – what Donatello’s sculpture captures](https://www.seenandunseen.com/carving-joy-and-suffering-what-donatellos-sculpture-captures) [Sara Schumacher](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/sara-schumacher) [Art](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/art) [Culture](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/culture) [Joy](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/joy) [Suffering](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/suffering) 4 min read ### [What’s love got to do with it?](https://www.seenandunseen.com/whats-love-got-do-it) [Beatrice Scudeler](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/beatrice-scudeler) [Culture](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/culture) [Film & TV](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/film-tv) [Romance](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/romance) 6 min read Related topics [Culture](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/culture) [Film & TV](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/film-tv) Review Community Culture Film & TV Trauma 16 April 2026 1 min read # Rebuilding is a welcome break from performative cruelty Josh O’Connor’s cowboy Dusty finds hope in the ashes of loss ## [Giles Gough](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/giles-gough) Giles is a writer and creative who hosts the God in Film podcast. Share  Lily LaTorre and Josh O'Connor star. Bleeker Street Media. After a wildfire consumes his family farm, a cowboy winds up in a camp with other people who have lost everything. Step by step, he slowly begins the process of building his life back up again, starting with his relationship with his daughter. Written and directed by Max Walker-Silverman, *Rebuilding* sees Josh O’Connor step into the role of Dusty, a young man who is quietly scrabbling to get himself back on his feet after the loss of the farm he was born and raised on. With no other options, he is forced to consider taking work out of state, which would take him far away from his daughter, Callie-Rose. However, he begins to find a spark of hope in the make-shift community that springs up amongst the displaced people he lives with in the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency for those of us outside the US) camp. Trying to describe *Rebuilding* using words already feels like you’re not doing it justice. On paper, there’s a lot that would generate little more than a collective shrug from the general cinema-going population. And yet, there’s something about this film that makes it special. A lot of that has to be down to the performances. Josh O’Connor has the kind of range some actors would kill for. For most of us, he came to our attention as the young Prince Charles in *The Crown*, and most recently captivated audiences as Father Jud, the overly sincere and loquacious priest in *Wake Up Dead Man*. As ‘Dusty’, he plays a man dealing with loss and depression in a society that can recognize, but is profoundly unable to help with those problems. Instead, we see him quietly try and deal with the terrible hand he’s been dealt, trying very hard not to bother anyone in the process. Anyone who studied The Great Depression in school will recognize the American desire to ‘pull yourself up by your own bootstraps’, and how quickly that ideology falls apart in a crisis. O’Connor manages to embody all of that in a quiet, understated performance that immediately makes the character sympathetic. Dusty initially rejects any offers of help from other people in the camp, presumably out of misplaced sense of pride. But he is deeply grateful for the small kindnesses repaid to him, and seeing him try to repay that kindness provides a lot of the narrative thrust of the film. Another incredibly strong performance comes down to phenomenal child actor, Lily LaTorre playing his daughter Callie-Rose. Watching Dusty’s social awkwardness reflected back at him through his daughter is brilliant. The way she too, is unable to outwardly process her emotions, yet somehow is able to communicate them to the audience is impressive for an actor that young. One of the stand out scenes is how, when Dusty realizes she needs internet access to do her homework, he drives her to the small public library. It is closed but they are able to access the wifi and she completes her reading task. In that moment, you see how much Dusty sees himself as a failure. And yet, when he talks to his ex-wife afterwards, she tells him how thrilled Callie-Rose was at being able to wear his jacket and sit in the back of his truck. It’s a poignant reminder how so much of fatherhood is simply showing up and trying. Perhaps one of the most interesting things is how there are no antagonists in this film. Dusty’s ex-wife, Ruby (Meghann Fahy) is quietly supportive, if despairing of Dusty’s emotional constipation. His former mother-in-law treats him like a son, there’s not even any tension between him and Ruby’s new partner Robbie. The bank manager, who could easily be a mustache twirling villain, gently turns him down for a loan and points him to another source of help. The FEMA official telling destitute people they’re not eligible for assistance yet because they filled out the wrong form still actively listens to their problems. In a world where performative cruelty is all the rage, *Rebuilding* was a welcome break. On a visual level, the film is absolutely stunning. It’s hard to tell how much of that is down to director of photography, Alfonso Herrera Salcedo, and how much is due to the breath-taking locations. When Mila (Kali Reis), one of the other survivors in the camp, says she can’t leave because she loves it there, we can see why. Rebuilding feels like a love letter to the human spirit, and a quiet indictment of climate change denial, and starving public services. Part of the appeal of this film is that it manages to be powerful without being showy, as a story about familial love for people who are not blood relatives. Some viewers might not be quite as enamoured with the slow pace and the quiet tone, but hopefully the film’s message that your trauma does not define you, and it doesn’t dictate how you respond to the world might just find the audience it’s looking for. ## Keep Seen & Unseen free for everyone For thousands of readers, our 2,000+ articles are a place to think, reflect, and see the world afresh – without paywalls. **If you’ve found value here, would you consider joining our monthly supporters?** Become part of Behind the Seen and receive a regular email from our Editor‑in‑Chief with the books, ideas, and reflections shaping our times. Graham Tomlin Editor‑in‑Chief [Join now](https://www.seenandunseen.com/behind-the-seen) ### Related articles ### [How children’s books challenge us to hope harder](https://www.seenandunseen.com/how-childrens-books-challenge-us-hope-harder) [Elizabeth Wainwright](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/elizabeth-wainwright) [Books](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/books) [Culture](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/culture) 5 min read ### [The curse of loneliness and the hope of kindness](https://www.seenandunseen.com/curse-loneliness-and-hope-kindness) [Roger Bretherton](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/roger-bretherton) [Change](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/change) [Loneliness](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/loneliness) 6 min read Related topics [Film & TV](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/film-tv) [Community](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/community) [Trauma](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/trauma) [Culture](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/culture) Podcast Culture Podcasts Poetry Re-Enchanting Wildness 15 April 2026 1 min read # Re-Enchanting... myths and legends with Malcolm Guite The Storyteller and poet-priest on retelling the tale of Galahad and the Grail and why it still matters ## [Nick Jones](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/nick-jones) Nick is the senior editor of *Seen & Unseen*. Share  ## Listen to episode ## About this episode Malcolm Guite is a beloved poet, storyteller, Anglican priest, and academic. He is author of numerous books including the Faith Hope and Poetry, Lifting thr Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God. As well as his latest offering - his first instalment of a mighty four-volume work - Galahad and the Grail. It really was only a matter of time until Malcolm found his way into the world of Re-Enchanting. In this conversation, Belle, Justin and Malcolm speak of poetry, beauty, old stories and slow reading. Together, they seek to re-enchanting myths and legends. [Galahad and the Grail](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Galahad-Grail-Merlins-Isle-1/dp/1786227126/ref=asc_df_1786227126?tag=bingshoppinga-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80470713939164&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=40877&hvtargid=pla-4584070184762788&psc=1&msclkid=4c396487aaa5167bd39a0d4109bc2dc3 "(opens in a new window)") ## Watch this episode ### Related articles ### [Tell the tale, just don’t tame it](https://www.seenandunseen.com/tell-tale-just-dont-tame-it) [Belle Tindall-Riley](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/belle-tindall-riley) [Belief](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/belief) [Culture](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/culture) [Easter](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/easter) [Wildness](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/wildness) 5 min read ### [Re-enchanting... myths and wild stories - Martin Shaw](https://www.seenandunseen.com/re-enchanting-myths-and-wild-stories-martin-shaw) [Nick Jones](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/nick-jones) [Culture](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/culture) [Podcasts](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/podcasts) [Re-Enchanting](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/re-enchanting) [Wildness](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/wildness) 1 min read Related topics [Re-Enchanting](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/re-enchanting) [Poetry](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/poetry) [Wildness](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/wildness) [Podcasts](https://www.seenandunseen.com/index/podcasts) Column Church and state Culture Leading Royalty 15 April 2026 4 min read # Leo the Lion vs Mad Dog Don: what would Henry VIII make of it? There's a historical precedent for the papal-presidential clash ## [George Pitcher](https://www.seenandunseen.com/contributors/george-pitcher) George is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest. Share  In a Pope v. POTUS prize-fight, I know who my money’s on. And it isn’t Donald Trump. For starters, he has to be gone in the New Year of 2029. If experience is anything to go by, he may try a military coup to stay, but the US Army isn’t yet made up of freaks in horned helmets, wearing furs and face-paint. Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV turned 70 last year and has the Chair of St Peter until he dies. He’s also considerably smarter than the US president, though that doesn’t make him a man in a billion. Impressively, this Vicar of Christ has called out Trump as a warmonger, affirmed that it’s his duty to speak the gospel of peace and stated that he’s unafraid of Trump’s administration. He then withdrew from this unseemly spat. Trump has responded with characteristic taste, posting an AI-generated image of himself as the Christ, healing a sick man against the background of a heavenly host, with women praying at his feet. Except Trump claimed it depicted him as a medic, albeit one in first-century Judean robes. Nurse! Mr Trump’s saying he’s Jesus again… So. In the red-tie corner, Mad-Dog Don. In the white-zucchetto corner, Leo the Lion. Seconds away! Round One. Oh, except the Holy Father has gone to Africa to get on with his job. It’s difficult to know when there was last such a dust-up between a Pope and a temporal world leader. Anti-Catholics tend to point to the Church’s historical admiration for dictators. And, indeed, there are some reprehensible examples – much of the priestly ministry in General Franco’s Spain, for example. Standing up to despots gets less airtime, though liberation theology as developed in South American dictatorships shows a gallant record of defending the oppressed. Some may point to “Hitler’s Pope”, Pius XII, who is alleged to have accommodated Nazism, though others claim his apparent neutrality masked heroic acts of hiding and spiriting away Jews in mortal danger. Really we have to go back 500 years to the reign of Henry VIII to find a proper punch-up between Pope and King. At first glance, Henry and Trump have much in common: Self-obsessed and vainglorious; instant gratification; misogyny (though there’s no evidence yet that Trump has actually beheaded a woman); divine right; morbid obesity. Trump has golf; Henry had falconry. Trump has obsequious J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth to do his demented bidding; Henry had Thomases Cromwell and Cranmer. One began to rot and left a foul smell around him; the other was a Tudor king. Yes, there is much to compare. The obsession with legacy and the deterioration of mental capacity. The idea of supreme power that trumps even that of the pontiff in Rome, though in fairness Henry never posed for a portrait dressed as the Pope. But there are key differences. Henry broke with Rome chiefly because he wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn, in pursuit of a male heir. But at least he knew who the Pope was. Trump seems to think Leo’s some sort of European trade commissioner, who only got the job because he’s American and so would know intuitively how to grease up to him. Henry was also steeped in Catholic devotion and learning, with his conscience crippled by his conviction that the royal succession was cursed by his marrying his dead brother’s wife. He read scripture incessantly and longed to re-establish God’s one true Catholic Church in England. Trump once held up a Bible outside a church to try to stop a riot in Washington DC. Henry, of course, didn’t preside over a democracy and, much to his irritation, Trump has to do so. So his only real engagement with Leo will be driven by how many votes he can provide. Catholics retain something of a regard for the Pope – a frustration for nationalist autocrats down the ages – and Trump loses their votes every time he calls Leo “weak”, “terrible” and an enabler of terrorists with nuclear weapons. Trump may not be a “big fan”, but his Catholic voters are. Also, Bible Belt evangelicals haven’t taken kindly to the tawdry icon of St Donald the Healer. It looks like very many of those limp hands that rested on him in prayer in the Oval Office will be wandering elsewhere in the ballot box. At least Henry, after he’d burned down the monasteries, offered an alternative, with the establishment of Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England. If you take on the Pope you need a plan – just as you do if you start a war with the middle-east’s biggest theocracy. Trump has no plan for either fight. No opening gambit, no endgame, just pieces. But still, there’s one very great achievement of the POTUS in taking on the Pope. He has, half a millennium on, finally made Henry VIII look quite good. ## Keep Seen & Unseen free for everyone For thousands of readers, our 2,000+ articles are a place to think, reflect, and see the world afresh – without paywalls. **If you’ve found value here, would you consider joining our monthly supporters?** Become part of Behind the Seen and receive a regular email from our Editor‑in‑Chief with the books, ideas, and reflections shaping our times. 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In a Pope v. POTUS prize-fight, I know who my money’s on. And it isn’t Donald Trump. For starters, he has to be gone in the New Year of 2029. If experience is anything to go by, he may try a military coup to stay, but the US Army isn’t yet made up of freaks in horned helmets, wearing furs and face-paint. Meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV turned 70 last year and has the Chair of St Peter until he dies. He’s also considerably smarter than the US president, though that doesn’t make him a man in a billion. Impressively, this Vicar of Christ has called out Trump as a warmonger, affirmed that it’s his duty to speak the gospel of peace and stated that he’s unafraid of Trump’s administration. He then withdrew from this unseemly spat. Trump has responded with characteristic taste, posting an AI-generated image of himself as the Christ, healing a sick man against the background of a heavenly host, with women praying at his feet. Except Trump claimed it depicted him as a medic, albeit one in first-century Judean robes. Nurse! Mr Trump’s saying he’s Jesus again… So. In the red-tie corner, Mad-Dog Don. In the white-zucchetto corner, Leo the Lion. Seconds away! Round One. Oh, except the Holy Father has gone to Africa to get on with his job. It’s difficult to know when there was last such a dust-up between a Pope and a temporal world leader. Anti-Catholics tend to point to the Church’s historical admiration for dictators. And, indeed, there are some reprehensible examples – much of the priestly ministry in General Franco’s Spain, for example. Standing up to despots gets less airtime, though liberation theology as developed in South American dictatorships shows a gallant record of defending the oppressed. Some may point to “Hitler’s Pope”, Pius XII, who is alleged to have accommodated Nazism, though others claim his apparent neutrality masked heroic acts of hiding and spiriting away Jews in mortal danger. Really we have to go back 500 years to the reign of Henry VIII to find a proper punch-up between Pope and King. At first glance, Henry and Trump have much in common: Self-obsessed and vainglorious; instant gratification; misogyny (though there’s no evidence yet that Trump has actually beheaded a woman); divine right; morbid obesity. Trump has golf; Henry had falconry. Trump has obsequious J.D. Vance and Pete Hegseth to do his demented bidding; Henry had Thomases Cromwell and Cranmer. One began to rot and left a foul smell around him; the other was a Tudor king. Yes, there is much to compare. The obsession with legacy and the deterioration of mental capacity. The idea of supreme power that trumps even that of the pontiff in Rome, though in fairness Henry never posed for a portrait dressed as the Pope. But there are key differences. Henry broke with Rome chiefly because he wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn, in pursuit of a male heir. But at least he knew who the Pope was. Trump seems to think Leo’s some sort of European trade commissioner, who only got the job because he’s American and so would know intuitively how to grease up to him. Henry was also steeped in Catholic devotion and learning, with his conscience crippled by his conviction that the royal succession was cursed by his marrying his dead brother’s wife. He read scripture incessantly and longed to re-establish God’s one true Catholic Church in England. Trump once held up a Bible outside a church to try to stop a riot in Washington DC. Henry, of course, didn’t preside over a democracy and, much to his irritation, Trump has to do so. So his only real engagement with Leo will be driven by how many votes he can provide. Catholics retain something of a regard for the Pope – a frustration for nationalist autocrats down the ages – and Trump loses their votes every time he calls Leo “weak”, “terrible” and an enabler of terrorists with nuclear weapons. Trump may not be a “big fan”, but his Catholic voters are. Also, Bible Belt evangelicals haven’t taken kindly to the tawdry icon of St Donald the Healer. It looks like very many of those limp hands that rested on him in prayer in the Oval Office will be wandering elsewhere in the ballot box. At least Henry, after he’d burned down the monasteries, offered an alternative, with the establishment of Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England. If you take on the Pope you need a plan – just as you do if you start a war with the middle-east’s biggest theocracy. Trump has no plan for either fight. No opening gambit, no endgame, just pieces. But still, there’s one very great achievement of the POTUS in taking on the Pope. He has, half a millennium on, finally made Henry VIII look quite good.