What do you think Joel meant by that?
In my opinion, the statement represents the mental state of the character rather than a substantial content. A beach is seen by most of us as something beautiful and magical with connotations of freedom and joy. But Joel seen the sand as something banal and lifeless, this is the perception of a depressed person, lonely who has lost the joy of life.
That's actually a great observation, I never made this connection. For me, it felt like something Joel is musing about, and the writers are including this to make the character relatable, as part of his introduction (I think this line is said pretty early on in the movie, but it was a really long time ago I last saw it, I might be wrong).
Anyways, I never looked deeper than "relatable", so thank you, this gave me a new perspective on this line.
Thank you for your comment. It's really great opening scene.
I will elaborate some more for you and others.
I believe the scene not meant just to complete a circle (as you know from watching the movie, the first scenes are actually a glimpse of an advanced stage in Joel and Clem relationship) but more to teach us about Joel pessimist and gloomy state of mind. Overrated is the key word here. He understand that most people seen sand as something that represents fun, freedom, beauty, maybe even adventure, but he only seen "tiny little rocks". Remind me of the Rolling Stone song "Paint it, black": "I see a red door
And I want it painted black". It's common among depressed people to seen everything, even things they enjoyed in the past, in a dark way.
i hate sand. it's coarse and rough and it gets everywhere.
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