Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

A man has recollections of a soured relationship erased from his brain, and still this may be the most romantic movie in recent memory. It's about many things -- how we're doomed to repeat the past if we can't even remember it, and how we need our pain as much as our pleasures to be complete. But primarily it's about second chances: What would you do if you could begin all over again with a lover you knew to be right, even though you had managed to make the relationship go so wrong you paid someone to make it vanish altogether? Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) are in love and then out of love and then, they hope, out of each other's memories thanks to a brain-zapping procedure. But Joel, midway through, doesn't want Clementine to leave his head or heart, and what we see are the collapsing and vanishing memories he tries to keep intact. Eternal Sunshine feels like something entirely brand-new; such are the gifts of writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry.