Kaufman’s latest ingenious creation is about a failed relationship between Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet). Using a new technology developed by a company named Lacuna Inc., Clementine has had the entire memory of her relationship with Joel completely erased. Joel is understandably upset, and as a odd sort of revenge, he decides to get his memories erased too. While Joel sleeps, Lacuna technicians (played by Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, and Kirsten Dunst) erase his memories while dealing with their own dysfunctional relationships.

The procedure works by mapping your brain, using scanners and laser light pointers, and all manner of sci-fi nonsense, and then using this map to destroy the memories right where they are stored (Don’t ask me how). Kaufman and director Michel Gondry take us inside the memory erasure process so we endure it right alongside Joel. It starts with the most recent memories which are naturally the bad memories of a couple about to break up. But as the erasing process moves inward, the beauty of this couple comes out and Joel remembers what was so special about Clementine. Unfortunately he’s already unconscious and stuck inside a landscape of memory that is deteriorating all around him.

There are a lot of strengths to Eternal Sunshine, but its structure is really something marvelous and almost otherworldly in its excellence. As Joel remembers, or rather as he is forced to forget through process of reliving his memories, his quest to save his experiences with Clementine takes on tragic proportions as his attempts to stop the procedure in midstream feel more and more futile. Yet at the same time, Kaufman continues to invent creative ways to play with the memory wipe - and Gondry matches each new idea with perfect visuals - that the film only gets more engrossing as it goes along. By the end, as things have looped around and warped our feeble human minds, even scenes and whole characters that seemed frivolous become important to the entire story.