This year I’ve made a more conscious effort to watch movies. I want to enjoy this medium more for what it is and integrate the lessons of great cinema into other parts of my creativity. Getting into this medium so late in my life is somewhat of a blessing as there is a plethora of classics I can take time to watch and learn from.

This month I watched “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” It had come up in conversations a few times in the weeks leading up to sitting in front of the screen, which I took as a sign that this is something I should watch. I wasn’t very knowledgeable about the movie to be honest, aside from the fact that it is a classic. Discussing it a little with my partner before watching,

I understood it would be a love story, possibly heart-wrenching. I knew it was a classic loved by many, and given all these inputs, I was comfortable watching something exploring love and the hardships it is accompanied by.

We watched, and I truly enjoyed the movie. It wasn’t, however, the heart-twisting adventure I was expecting. I remember watching “Past Lives” a few months earlier and was absolutely tormented by the narration and direction. I somehow expected to be moved the same way with it, and while I know it is unfair to compare, this is where my mind went at.

Coming out of the experience, I logged the following on Letterboxd:

Didn’t really know much getting into it, somewhat thought it would crush me more. My sober ass can’t help but read an addiction subtext to it.

A movie so critically acclaimed left me with thoughts surrounding the movie, not engaging with the main theme of it. I guess this can be the magic of cinema, extracting whatever you need to extract, even if it is not directly in line with what the director intended to share.

I won’t be trying to justify my view exhaustively like an amateur video essayist trying to convince someone doom-scrolling. However, I want to reflect on what I saw and why this part resonated with me way more than the love story at the center of the movie.

ESOTSM (There’s no nice abbreviation I can use here, huh?) is a movie that triggered my sober self. So many times over, my attention got drawn to how the different characters were dealing with alcohol abuse instead of the dramatic love story unfolding at the center of the stage.

The female lead, Clementine, is shown as an impulsive, hedonistic being and keeps on bringing alcohol into the relationship she has with Joel (the male lead). She enjoys getting drunk and enjoys having Joel drunk alongside her. There are repeated events where her addiction is exacerbated throughout the movie.

I saw her character as “the deep end of addiction.” She represented losing touch and control, she was the image of what I am working with everyday when being sober. Joel feels like he succumbed to her charm the way one could have fallen for “one more drink”.

It was very intriguing how I felt this relationship was toxic from the outset just because of the addictive undertone. It was hard for me to root for the love to win between those characters, as I saw destruction looming around the corner. This sentiment of pushing away passion for safety is a feeling I have to work with daily, and seeing it acted out as a love story brought conflicting feelings to mind.

I would rather not push away from love. Why do I believe they have to fail? My addictive traits are showing in many places and are kept in check through my vow for sobriety (is this even a vow?). However, I didn’t think of these traits regarding relationships. Relationships are not sober: they have all the ups and downs and emotions, without them, they may fall flat.

The movie kept on bringing alcohol into the picture, many times over. Seeing the “memory removal” team scour through Joel’s apartment to find hard liquor, bring beer over, and party it up while he was “passed out.” The very same liquor coming back into play the next day, him being frustrated not being able to serve a full glass to his newfound partner.

Each time a bottle was taken out, it was another tally to abuse onto my thoughts.

I remember him refusing beer at the restaurant by putting his hand over his cup, a move showing much more than to just say “no”. I remember the doctor telling Joel that going through this memory removal process was indeed brain damage, but “just like a heavy night of drinking so nothing bad”.

There were so, so, so many moments of “this is just about addiction isn’t it”.

But then, if it was, what would be the message?

The addiction recovery process is akin to memory removal. An addict undergoes this procedure, trying to lose all references to the substance while it hides within their memories, they want to move on from it but stay deeply attached once they see it go?

And when they think it is gone, they meet and fall in love again, furthermore consciously deciding to keep the relationship going despite knowing that they will be hurt, again and again?

The movie turned to a sober horror.

The existential crisis of realizing you cannot leave addiction behind and can only accept to live with it despite how hurtful it might be.

It did break me in the end, not with the heart-wrenching love story, but because of the read my subjective conscious mind made of it.

Its magic, tailored to my experience, decided to deliver the bleakest message possible.

A message of hopelessness and inevitability, of belief that one can will their way out of a passionate love only to find out that passion cannot be removed and holds, long after they think it is over.