Fridge / Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

• Fridge Brilliance:
  • The first time we see Lacuna, it's a shiny doctors' office. Later, we see a run-down van and cobbled-together equipment. The shiny doctors' office is a false memory implanted by Lacuna; it doesn't exist.
    • Though, strictly speaking, the concept of implanting the memories was never introduced in the movie so we don't know whether it's possible at all in that universe.
    • Another possibility that hasn't been pointed out is this: the office is a false front. In a deleted scene, there was an in-universe commercial for the company where they are presenting themselves to be professionals. It'd be kind of hard for them to be able to get clients if they showed how cobbled together their equipment was. It's kinda similar to the commercial in the movie Ghostbusters (1984) that Dana Barrett first sees. How are they presented? Nice, clean suits with lab jackets. They don't show the inside of their Firehouse HQ, nor much of their equipment (especially the proton packs) because the place was still a work in progress and the equipment was also equally cobbled together, and they also presented themselves as professionals who are "ready to believe you", but Dana is surprised when they have to do testing on her to confirm she was telling them the truth about what she saw in her apartment and is put off by the fact that Venkman was more a "game show host" than a professional scientist who captures ghosts for a living. The whole point of a commercial, as well as the office, is to give a sense that they are professionals and have what they know down to an exact science. The same is true with Lacuna and their offices. If they had the real tech used to erased minds in the office in full display, it'd more than likely scare off their customers and possible scare off potential customers if they featured the real tech in commercials. It's not that the doctor's office is a false memory, it's them putting up a false face of professionalism in order to draw in customers. Let me put it in a context everyone will know: if you are going to see a doctor, which would be the place you're more than likely to go visit?: a pristine and clean doctor's office, or a rundown van in a back alley? More than likely the former than the latter.
  • Clementine's reasons for breaking up with Joel are how he never opened up to her. In trying to keep the memory of her he puts her in all the dark places he never let her into.
  • Also, of course Joel wants to keep his memories of Clementine, the procedure erases the most recent memories first. As the movie goes on, Joel probably forgets that he broke up with Clementine at all.
    • Or even the reasons he broke up with her in the first place.
  • Joel doesn't remember "Oh My Darling Clementine" because, when trying to save her, Clem was in a memory of Joel's mom singing the song. Clem got erased from that memory, which by extension erased the song.
• Fridge Horror:
  • When Joel initially meets Clementine, he is well aware of the song frequently associated with her name. As a result of the procedure, he has no memory of it, despite its memory only be associated, not originated, with her. If details as insignificant as songs are being lost because of the mind wipe, what else were people losing? There are also a vast myriad of ways this procedure could be used in incredibly unethical ways - implied by Howard's pressuring Mary into having it done after their affair.
  • A little one concerning the song: it is stated that Joel's favorite toy during his childhood was a Huckleberry Hound doll. Imagine having the memory of your favorite thing as a kid wiped away. That's extremely heartbreaking.
  • When Joel goes to get his memories erased, look at the things the other patients are holding (the relics of people they're trying to forget).
  • After Joel's memory erasure is completed, Lacuna still have absolutely no idea that he tried to resist the procedure. One wonders how many of their clients realized they didn't want to go through with the procedure halfway through but were, like Joel, unable to stop it. Granted, the Lacuna employees react with surprise when Joel goes "off-map" and tries hiding in older memories, but perhaps it had simply never occurred to any of the other unwilling clients to try that.
    • Probably a large number of them if you think about it. The procedure starts with the most recent, and therefore worst memories, and works backwards. At the point he wants to stop the procedure he has fallen in love with her again because he literally can't remember why he had come to resent her so much. Those memories are already gone, leaving the mostly happier memories. Regarding his going off the map, most people don't have much control about what goes on in a dream state. The fact that he can may imply that he is a lucid dreamer.
    • It might have also happened to Clementine when she had Joel erased. Imagine starting off breaking up with someone because they wouldn't open up to you, and then as your memories are being wiped, you come to realize that you may have been part of the problem and that there were times they might have tried (for example the scene where Joel asks Clementine if she thinks she'd be a good mother, and how it went sour. Joel asked a question out of curiosity, and Clementine practically ripped into him when he tried to take back the question, becoming defensive and thinking he was saying she wouldn't be a good mother). Kinda makes you wonder if Clementine misinterpreted Joel's attempts to open up to her many times before that.
  • Joel, after the procedure, acts, by his own admission, quite unlike his usual self (as he goes to Montauk to look for something he has no clue about), and reacts in an uncharacteristically aggressive manner to Clementine's tape (whereas he seems downright apathetic or lethargic in previous arguments). Then you remember, he tried hiding Clem within several humiliating and painful memories that were still clearly stuck in his mind (maybe even shaped his character), and which promptly were erased as Lacuna's stuff tried tracking him down. Think about it...by erasing sore spots and character-defining events from your mind, and even it it's for the better, Lacuna is able to fundamentally alter who you are...
• The fact that the memories are attached to emotional resonance, but once they're wiped, the feelings themselves remain. So you feel lousy and you have no idea why. This combination of anger, bitterness, and dazed confusion must be what Alzheimer's patients go through.