NARRATIVE OF A FILM/TRAILEREternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

FILM NARRATIVE USING TODOROV’S THEORY Equilibrium - It's Valentines Day -- Joel seems unhappy and so takes a

spontaneous day off work and goes to Montauk. He finds himself falling for every girl that shows him the slightest bit of affection. He meets a girl called Clementine in Montauk, they get along and we're shown that they spend the next two days together. We then see a sequence of Joel crying (it's apparent that this is sometime after he meets Clementine), he gets home and we find out it's a day before Valentines Day, he takes a tablet and goes straight to bed. People with equipment then go into his apartment.

Disruption - It then flashes back to three days before Valentines Day and Joel is saying that he wants his and Clementine's situation resolved.  Joel is at the library, he sees Clementine working and tries to speak to her -- only, she acts like she doesn't know who he is and talks to another guy whom she seems to be in a relationship with. 

Realisation - Joel goes to his friends to talk about how she acted like she didn't know him, he's upset, confused and angry with her. His friends show him a card they had received, from 'LACUNA INC.', which says that Clementine had undergone a medical procedure to erase all memories of Joel and to never mention their relationship to her ever again. 

Attempt to repair - After discovering what Clementine had done, Joel finds 'LACUNA INC.' and ends up deciding to have the same procedure done to erase all memories of Clementine. We then go back to see the actual procedure happening in Joel's sleep. The film then goes back and forth between what is happening in his room where the procedure is taking place and being inside Joel's head looking at his memories. By the end of Joel's procedure, Mary, who works at 'LACUNA INC.', ends up sending CDs of recordings out to everyone who had had their memories erased -- these recordings were taken when they were talking about the person they wanted to erase from their memories. 

New equilibrium - Joel's memories are erased, as he wakes up, we see the same sequence we saw at the very start of the film. We're shown that Joel and Clementine meet once again and it jumps to the second day that they were together. After stopping at Clementine's apartment, she has received a letter from Mary and her tape is inside. Her and Joel listen to it in the car and she says she's erasing Joel. Joel goes home alone and discovers he also has had a tape sent to him. Clementine finds where Joel lives and goes to his apartment and someone who lives in his building recognises her. They listen to his tape together and don't understand why Joel would say some of the things that he said. She goes to leave but Joel tells her to wait -- they agree that Joel may end up finding something that he doesn't like about her and that Clementine may end up getting bored and feeling trapped, but they want to try anyway. It ends with Joel and Clementine, seemingly, back together and happy.

TRAILER NARRATIVE Equilibrium - Joel and Clementine meet and they seem

very happy together

Disruption - Their relationship begins to break down and we can see that they're unhappy together, Clementine comes home late and they just don't seem to get on

Realisation - We see very little evidence that shows Joel finding out that Clementine erased Joel from her memory

Attempt to repair - Joel decides to erase Clementine from his memory

New equilibrium - NOT SHOWN