Page 31 - HERE AND NOW Dec 2022

In separate, but related story arcs, the employees of Lacuna Corporation are revealed to be more than
peripheral characters in scenes which further show the harm they cause by the memory-altering
procedure. Mary (Kirsten Dunst) has had an affair with the married Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom
Wilkinson), who heads the company. She agrees to have the affair erased from her memory when his wife
discovers the relationship.

Lonely, socially inept Patrick becomes fixated on Clementine and uses Joel's personal mementos that he
gave to Lacuna as part of the procedure, to seduce her. These romantic entanglements turn out to have
a critical effect on the main storyline of the relationship between Joel and Clementine.
Once Mary remembers the affair she has had with Mierzwiak, she steals the company's records and sends
these to all its clients. Thus, Joel and Clementine both get to listen to their initial tape recordings at Lacuna,
and afterwards realize that even if everything in life isn't perfect, their relationship can still be worthwhile.
The title of the movie is taken from poet Alexander Pope’s 1717 poem “Eloise to Abelard”. Dr Mierzwiak's
staff are enamored of Nietzsche's paradox about how the strong man forgets what he cannot master:
"Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders."

Moving on and getting closure - which is what the end of relationships is supposed to be all about - is
easier said than done. Not dwelling or brooding or obsessing about why someone fell out of love with you
is easier said than done. In the absence of marriage for life, serial monogamy is what people have come
to expect. And so, cultivating the art of forgetting to manage these transitions is easier said than done.
Oblivion, of the kind suggested in the film, could offer peace, but evidently at the cost of self-destruction,
which is clear when Joel passionately feels that his unhappiness over Clementine is actually a part of his
identity. Moving to a paradisical land could be great, but it is also frightening to imagine a future in which
our current happiness and unhappiness will no longer exist. There is a flowy surreal mist that takes over
the mind at this juncture in the film and makes you question your ways, your meaning making, your
choice- making at various points in time. Extrapolation of some of these to my own life, my ideas of love,
my romantic fantasies, crushing realities that call out those fantasies, the so-called elephantine memory
I have, the suffering it is likely to bring when I haven’t processed my experiences, the barrage of emotions,
my own meaning-making and choices, and then bringing it all together - was indeed a rich experience for
me. Like Walt Whitman says – “These are the days that must happen to you.”
Some of the dialogues from the film that stay with me:

(Joel Barish to Clementine) “I could die right now, Clem. I’m just… happy. I’ve never felt that before. I’m
just exactly where I want to be.”

(Clementine to Joel): “Joel, look at me. You’ll remember me in the morning, and you’ll come to me, and
you’ll tell me about us, and we’ll start over.”

“Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a
f*cked-up girl who’s lookin’ for my own peace of mind; don’t assign me yours.”

(Joel aloud): “What a loss to spend that much time with someone, only to find out that she’s a stranger.”
…“I wish I had stayed too. NOW I wish I had stayed. I wish I had done a lot of things. I wish I had… I wish I
had stayed. I do.”

(Mary, quoting Nietzsche): “Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.”

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