Script Analysis: “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” — Part 3: Characters

Read the script for the critically acclaimed 2004 film and analyze it all this week.

Reading scripts. Absolutely critical to learn the craft of screenwriting. The focus of this bi-weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. Our daily schedule:

Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways

Today: Characters.

Characters are the players in our stories. They participate in scenes, move the plot forward through action and dialogue, influence each other, evolve and change. Each has their own distinct backstory, personality, world view, and voice. When a writer does their best, digging deep into their characters, tapping into their souls, the players in our stories magically lift up off the printed page and come to life in a reader’s imagination.

But there’s this: In a screenplay, characters exist for a reason. Hence my principle: Character = Function. Writers can shade and shape a story’s character in limitless ways. But if you dig down deep enough, you can find each character’s narrative function, and that can become a lens through which you develop the players in your stories.

Same thing with script and movie analysis: Look at each character and think about why they exist and what their function is.

Today we discuss the characters in the script for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. You may download a PDF of February 4, 2003 draft here.

A list of the key players:

Joel
Clementine
Patrick
Stan
Mary
Mierzwiak
Rob
Carrie
Naomi

Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, story by Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth

IMDb plot summary: When their relationship turns sour, a young couple undergoes a medical procedure to have each other erased from their memories.

Writing Exercise: Think about each character. What’s their function? And see if you can use character archetypes to help in your analysis.

Major kudos to Andrew Lightfoot for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.

To download a PDF of the breakdown for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, go here.

For Part 1, to read the Scene-By-Scene Breakdown discussion, go here.

For Part 2, to read the Major Plot Points discussion, go here.

I hope to see you in the RESPONSE section about this week’s script: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

For 70 movie scripts which members of the GITS community have read and analyzed, go here.