This Is How People Express Love Nowadays

Rating: 8/10 (30 May 2004)

(Spoilers Included)
In a semi-sci-fi setting, former lovers Clementine (Kate Winslet) and Joel (Jim Carrey) respectively seek professional help to erase each other's memories, in order to move on easily. The audience learns their history through Joel's dream, while the memory-erasing process is ongoing and Joel in his dream, being afraid to lose Clementine, fights against it. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the most twisted rom-com ever made, is an appropriate representation of how people express love nowadays, and proves that our complicated modern world and the 100-year-old film media are still in synch.
As the film progresses, the opening sequence, which the viewers would perceive as their first encounter, turns out to be their second meeting after their losses of each other's memories. In this film, this cliched amnesia gimmick does work, re-shifting the audience's brain and mind along with the fragmented development of Clementine and Joel's relationship.
To enhance the twisted screenplay that only Charlie Kaufman can write, the director Michel Gondry uses low cinematic techniques (cinematography, editing, and post-production), most meaningfully and most effectively, probably for the first time since Godard.