Protagonist

Character Role Analysis

Joel

Paying attention to perspective is an easy way to tell who the protagonist is, and in Eternal Sunshine, we are literally inside Joel's head for most of the movie. Now, there's no doubt that this movie is just as much about Clementine as it is about Joel, but the whole story plays itself out from Joel's point of view, so we know he is the main dude.

Still, we kind of wonder what the movie would have been like from Clem's perspective. Would she have been trying to cherish her good memories and wishing for the procedure to stop, like Joel? Or would she just have let them all go and be carefree, happy to let go of one part of her life and start anew? Would we be more or less sympathetic to Joel? We'll never know.