Bugarin, April Grace N.

Pattern of development used: Comparison and Contrast

“Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind” vs. “500 Days of Summer”

What is love? Most people have heard this question, either being asked to or asked by them. Is it what
you've been told in the movies, songs and stories, or is it something else entirely? But if you are
expecting your romance to be non-stop passion, breath-taking excitement and full of musical, you are in
for a lot of disappointment. “500 days of summer” and “Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind” are both
films that fit in the genre of romance. These films are both from my list of favorite films. I love how both
of the films express love as something every deep and also heartbreaking. But these films also has
differences and similarities when it comes to how they view love.

“Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind” is too deep in terms of meaning. It doesn’t involve only romance
or daily relationships between wife and husband. It says that life is like a trap you can’t avoid from your
fate only by doing external changes. It also shows that life is beautiful with its faults, quarrels and
imperfection. Let’s understand the title of the movie. “Eternal sunshine" is a metaphor for ongoing
peace, happiness and carefree. So in total, the title "Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind" is describing
the happiness and joy one can experience once the negative experiences—“spots”—have been removed
from your mind. So the movie is trying to convey how a person can achieve peace by eliminating the
negative. In this movie both the leads are trying to forget each other’s memories so as to be happy and
at peace again. But Eternal Sunshine of Spotless mind is something not possible in real world. Many
people describe Clementine (leading lady) as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Manic Pixie Dream Girls serve as
full-time muses and inspirations to their men without having personal ambitions or different opinions in
crucial things (in trivial things they can have different opinions because that helps the men to develop,
but MPDGs cannot “disobey” their men). i dont see clementine as a MPDG. Clementine is self-
destructive, short-tempered, impulsive, and quickly discards what she has as soon as she sees
something else she likes. However, what makes her different is how she still manages to hang on to a
sense of self-love despite being aware of how awful she is. Her self-love allows her to pick out things -
no matter how nonsensical, radical, or mundane - that make her happy for a long time.

Whereas “500 days of summer” is linked to characters of different people. By watching this movie I have
realized that some of us simply love to try something new and they don’t care of others’ feelings. The
main thing in this movie is the phrases like “life continues” and “we love another one” are illustrated
with realistic examples. What makes this movie a cinematic masterpiece is the climax scene of the film.
It doesn’t serve us with the false illusion that most of the romantic comedies generally do. It offers a
new perspective about love and draws a stark comparison between expectation and reality. This movie
leaves us with a question, was Tom ( leading man) really in love with summer (leading lady), or he was
just in love with his idea of Summer? This is why people label Summer as a MPDG. Summer is not what
Tom thinks she is. Summer is anything else but that. The similarities of Summer and Clementine is that
they are both labeled as a MPDGS but for me they are not. They are just trying to think of better lives of
themselves and there’s nothing wrong with that. Its there choice to make.
In conclusion, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind says that love is eternal and fate is real whereas 500
days of summer claims life is full of love and we always have a choice. I love both of the film because it
talks about how love can be beautiful and at the same time, destructive.