Like the very best science-fiction and fantasy writing, Eternal Sunshine uses its fantasy elements to conjure a situation that illuminates something important about the human condition. The movie’s concerns are at a more human scale: What makes a love affair good or bad? Would we be better off without our painful memories, or do we need them to learn? And, in the end, what makes us fall in love, anyway? The fate of Earth (or another planet) doesn’t hang in the balance.
There’s no dark conspiracy erasing memories the characters have freely chosen to have their memories of their bad love affairs erased. Kaufman’s sci-fi/fantasy element seems as pedestrian as a Dell™ laptop. The memory-erasing machine has no overstuffed dentist chair with ominous restraints, and there’s no menacing apparatus attached to the subject’s head. Eternal Sunshine has none of the bigger- than-life trappings of Hollywood sci-fi. If downplaying the sci-fi was his goal, Kaufman has basically succeeded. I just want to try to make that as real as I can so that it’s not an issue for the audience.” So, no, I don’t think of it as science fiction, but I recognize that there’s fantasy in it. You just kind of present it and then get on with it, you know. “I’m interested in downplaying that aspect as much as possible.
I try not to think of that,” Kaufman told Script. “You know, Malkovich and this have supernatural kinds of elements to. But when we ask Kaufman whether he thought of the story as science fiction, he seems to tense up as if he’s been anticipating the question-and dreading it. Dick-inspired films as Total Recall and Paycheck, and even in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager.
It’s familiar sci-fi territory, explored in such Philip K.
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