I remember watching this on t.v. acouple years ago, and really loved this movie. It was, in my thought, pretty damn good. Remembering this makes me want to go out and buy the dvd.
Recommendation to anyone to watch, if interested.
Plot spoiler for any who didn't see it.
Emotionally withdrawn Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and dysfunctional free spirit Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) strike up a relationship on a Long Island Rail Road train. They are inexplicably drawn to each other, despite their radically different personalities.
Although they apparently do not realize it at the time, Joel and Clementine are in fact former lovers, now separated after having spent two years together. We learn that after a nasty fight, Clementine hired a New York firm – Lacuna, Inc. – to erase all memories of their relationship. (The term "lacuna" means a gap or missing part. Lacunar amnesia is a gap in one's memory about a specific event.) Upon discovering this, Joel is devastated and decides to undergo this same procedure himself. However, while unconscious and having these same memories erased, he rebels, realizing he wants to hold on to his memories of Clementine and himself after all.
Much of the film takes place in Joel's mind as he struggles to preserve at least some memory of his love for Clementine. We watch their love and courtship go in reverse. The memories are slowly erased while Joel tries his best to resist the procedure and hide inside his own mind.
In separate and related story arcs, the employees of Lacuna are revealed to be more than peripheral characters in scenes which further demonstrate the harm caused by the memory-altering procedure. Mary (Dunst) turns out to have had an affair with the married doctor who heads the company (Wilkinson), a relationship which she agreed to have erased from her memory when it was discovered by his wife.
Once Mary learns of this, she steals the company's records and sends them to all of its clients. Joel and Clementine come upon these records just after having re-encountered each other. They struggle to understand the documents, given that they have no clear memory of having known each other, let alone having had a relationship and electing to have the memory erased. In the end they are drawn together despite their forgotten history.
