Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind at 20: a love story that’s impossible to forget | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The greatest screen romances are usually about failure, not happily ever afters. Love sacrificed. Love unrequited. Love forbidden by social mores or bad timing or the tectonic forces of history. Think Casablanca. Brief Encounter. In the Mood for Love. The Age of Innocence. Moonlight. Considered another way, though, they’re powerful because they end so pristinely, before the banal hassles and petty fissures of everyday life make a mess of things. Give a relationship enough time and Before Sunrise turns into Before…