There are few romantic movies more impactful than 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Written by auteur Charlie Kaufman – famous for his cryptic, cerebral storylines – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind tells the story of a couple doomed to forget each other.
Though we meet awkward protagonist Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) alone on Valentine’s Day, catching a train to a freezing cold Montauk beach, we soon learn he hasn’t been that way for long.
Joel was recently in a relationship with a woman named Clementine (Kate Winslet), who has paid a mysterious company to erase her memories of their relationship.
Joel, in response, has done the same.
Through clever editing, we flash back and forth between their flawed partnership and their present loneliness – and get an unfolding sense of their characters and motivations in the process.
What the movie doesn’t spell out for us, though, is the genesis of this erasure.
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