The beautiful story of Joel and Clementine. Two lovers who's relationship may have ended and been erased, but who's love will not be denied.

Rating: 10/10 (3 October 2011)

This is perhaps my favorite movie of the last decade. It is certainly in my top 5. Written by Charlie Kaufman, and directed with by the wildly imaginative Michel Gondry, I was lucky enough to see this movie at the theater during the summer of 04'. The timing couldn't have been any better for me personally, as i had gone through a horrific divorce 2 years prior, and had just moved to California to be with my new girlfriend.
This is the kind of romantic movie that even guys will hold very near and dear to their hearts. The movie presents us with 2 flawed characters who have broken up, Clementine gets her memories of the relationship erased, and when Joel finds out about this, he opts to undergo the same treatment. The movie presents the memories of their relationship in reverse order starting with their bitter and angry break-up,(during which both of them say things that the audience can tell they don't mean) and ending with their initial meeting on the beach. The memory scenes inside Joel's head are all shot with beautiful cinematography, the images are haunting & iconic. Gondry uses his signature camera tricks to great effect, and manages to create a fully realized world of disappearing memories.
The movies main storyline runs along simultaneously with the story of married Dr. Mierzwiak(Wilkinson)& his inappropriate relationship with his secretary(Dunst) which takes place in the real world during the events taking place inside Joel's mind. The movies only flaws are in this secondary plot line, which attempts to point out ( rather heavy handedly) how unethical such a procedure is, and how it would only leave the recipient with a sense of being raped and robbed of a piece of ones identity. It all seems forced and obvious, as if all of the writer and directors efforts went into telling the story of Joel and Clementine, and the rest of the story was just kind of thrown together halfheartedly.Or maybe its just that we, as the viewer are so drawn to the story of the main characters, that we just fail to care at all about the extraneous story.
Dunst and Wilkinson, (to their credit)play their parts with skill and nuance, she is so obviously in love with him, and wants desperately to gain his affection. While he wants to avoid her, and keep from possibly doing more damage to his marriage. Dunst and Wilkinson's relationship only serves to underline the same points that are made by the main storyline of Carey and Winslet's characters. That being that a person may remove their memories, but the soul that has been touched by those memories, cannot be changed. Love cannot be forgotten or erased, because it is fated, because it is too precious to us, it becomes an indelible part of the fabric of our selves. we are forever changed by it, and without those memories, as beautiful and horrible as they may be, our soul's will know that something big is missing.