Stop reading RIGHT NOW if you have not seen this movie!!

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Thinking this morning about what I watched last night, I suddenly realized there is a fatal flaw in the storyline. Help me out with this one, people! If you have already seen the movie, tell me what's wrong with my reasoning here:

Joel goes to Montauk at the beginning of the movie, we subsequently discover, because Clementine told him to meet her there just as the last memories of her were being erased.

BUT -- why is Clementine in Montauk? It was Joel's memory of her that told him to meet her there, not Clementine herself. Clementine should have no knowledge at all of what her memory-self said or did with Joel. This is not a telephathic experience, after all.

So why does Clementine "meet" Joel in Montauk, when only Joel knows she "told" him to do so?

My thinking is this-- Clementine (memory-self) is as much like
her real self as Joel knows her to be. this would include her
habits and quirks. Montauk represents the place they BOTH
spent time together (and a place she frequents) so it makes sense that's where his memories would tell he to go to.

Remember, her memories of HIM were erased but the things they experienced she experienced still...

Does that make any sense??

-C!

Perfect sense. But it does not explain why Clementine went to Montauk the same day Joel did. That requires a coincidence of truly astonomical proportions!

True JB.

As a writer don't you think such a coincidence
is somtimes necessary to move this story to such a
conclusion? Or could it have be executed differently?

-C!

As a writer don't you think such a coincidence
is somtimes necessary to move this story to such a
conclusion? Or could it have be executed differently?

*******


Most stories start with a coincidence of some kind, large or small. Unfortunately, for this to be explained as a coincidence means that the coincidence is necessary in order that the whole point of the movie can be made.

Also -- not wishing to be a mind reader, but. . . -- I don't think Kaufmann was playing it as a coincidence. I think he somehow "forgot" that the Clementine in Joel's mind (effectively a lucid dream) was not the real Clementine. I think the whole story hinges on the real Clementine having the same memories, albeit subliminally as with Joel's, that the memorex Clementine would have.

Remember also that real Clementine was being courted
by this guy that was using her memories of Joel to his
advantage. This seemed to cause a "spark" in her that
may have led to the coincidence of their meeting up in
Montauk the same day. She seemed to be remembering
little things about their meetings just as he was forgetting
them.

i do praise this film for such thought provoking content tho'...

-C!

Remember also that real Clementine was being courted
by this guy that was using her memories of Joel to his
advantage. This seemed to cause a "spark" in her that
may have led to the coincidence of their meeting up in
Montauk the same day. She seemed to be remembering
little things about their meetings just as he was forgetting
them.

**********

Joel and Clementine having had their first meeting on the beach at Montauk is clearly of great significance for both of them. But for both of them to end up going to Montauk on the same day -- the very day after Joel has had the "procedure" -- strains even acceptable coincidence beyond the breaking point.

i'll have to agree with you there, JB.

Guess it all has to do with moving the
plot forward with romantic type effect...
...destiny an' all...

-C!

Funny thing is, I think I would have had no trouble with this at all if it had been unambiguously presented as a Cosmic Coincidence. The fact that even an attempt was made to turn it into something else punched a big hole thru the story for me.

Not at the time, and I will certainly be picking up this one when it appears on a DVD near me -- but I will now be aware of that small but close to fatal flaw.

You know, considering how much of a factor "duex ex machina" (sp?) was in the last Charlie Kaufman film, do you think it's playing itself out here, too?

Mike O'Brien

<<So why does Clementine "meet" Joel in Montauk, when only Joel knows she "told" him to do so?>>

Perhaps, as Joel did, she had the same reaction he did to the procedure...she tried to reject the erasure as he did. Perhaps that figment of Joel in her mind at the end mentioned going to Montauk as well...nope that is an even bigger stretch.

Fate?

Or maybe Joel never woke up from the procedure and has recreated her and the world in his own comatose mind where he and his memories of her will live on forever happily.

Nah.

Maybe it'll be explained further on the DVD...

G.

Perfect sense. But it does not explain why Clementine went to Montauk the same day Joel did. That requires a coincidence of truly astonomical proportions!
***************

Perhaps she a strange urge to routinely go there. Maybe she goes there every day, but really doesn't know why.

crw

Maybe she goes there every day, but really doesn't know why.

*******

Montauk is way the hell out on the far end of Long Island, about as far from New York as you can go without getting your feet wet. It's not really somewhere somebody could go every day -- not if that person had a job to go to. And the meeting does take place on a workday, as Joel has to phone in sick to his never-quite-defined (tho it seems he might be a comicbook artist) job.

Again, it all pushes coincidence past the breaking point!

You're going to make me have to go see this again!

I seem to recall that she wanted to go there with Patrick (after he leaves Joel's apartment in the middle of the erasing - to go see her), but he doesn't want to go. She gets annoyed with him and decides to go by herself.


Then "the next day" he shows up at her place when Joel drops her off to get her toothbrush, and he's freaked out to see Joel in the car.

[typo]

I seem to recall that she wanted to go there with Patrick (after he leaves Joel's apartment in the middle of the erasing - to go see her), but he doesn't want to go. She gets annoyed with him and decides to go by herself.



*****


Yup --- but it still doesn't get Joel and Clementine going to Montauk at the same time, unless we invoke telepathy.

True, but at least it explains the coincidence to some degree.
We could assume that Clementine left the night before to go Montauk (after arguing with Patrick), so she's there already. And then her and Joel first see each other in the cafe there.

I know I'm going into "explain-it-away mode" a bit here, but only to have better undrstanding of the plot!

I think I was more bothered by the "memory version" of Clementine telling him to go to Montauk then I was by the two of them actually being there at the same time. Why would that happen?

It might have been better if he heard a conversation referencing her going to Montauk while he was sedated, perhaps in a conversation between Patrick and the other flunky doing the erasing. (or in the phone conversation between Patrick and Clementine prior to his leaving).

I think I was more bothered by the "memory version" of Clementine telling him to go to Montauk then I was by the two of them actually being there at the same time. Why would that happen?

*******


That was my original point, up at the top of this thread.

I feel like I'm in an Omac time-loop now!!

Kaufman covered his tracks with so manysmall details (Joel not knowing the song "My Darlin' Clementine" or even his childhood favorite show Huckleberry Hound) that I can't believe he'd spazz on something so critical as how they happened to meet the second time.

It's certainly possible, but it just seems unlikely.

I'll have to watch the film again to be sure but I think he does "hear" things while unconscious, perhaps this explains Montauk. For instance, he is aware of what Patrick is doing (though he can't visualize him in his dream state).

OK, ok, now that I've seen the film, I'm sure it's just duex ex machina - especially after Adaptation - which, as a film, is less about the "Orchid Thief" of Susan Orlean's book, but rather, the tortuous process of having to adapt the book, which lacked the narritive climax that was so important to making a watchable film.

Recall, if you will, that Charlie Kaufman goes to a writing seminar where Brian Cox informs him that duex ex machina is ok, and he then turns Orlean into a junkie and internet amateur porn star, just to end the film.

There's been a lot of talk of how great Charlie Kaufman is, and I have to hand it to him, he writes a clever script, but making things fit just to fit is a crutch he not only uses, but brags about using. I've heard talk amongst my film-geek employees that it's "Post-Modern" film writing, but I just call it lazy, myself.

Mike O'Brien

Little things like this ruin movies for me. Remember that Tom Cruise sci-fi flick from a few years ago? Well, he takes his old eyes out of the bag and shoves them in front of the retinal scanner to gain access to his former place of employment. What? I think most places, especially top secret ones, would have adjusted security after a few hours, especially if a former employee was wanted for a future crime. Maybe that should be a comic story. Wasn't the Constrictor (Greatest Villain Ever!) a part of SHIELD back in the early '90s?

"The only artists I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are."--Lord Henry Wotton
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde