
You remember your happiest or saddest moments with your ex because of how you felt all those years ago, and why you don't remember your routine breakfast from today. It's not about erasing the memories but the emotions that fuel them. Mierzwiak tells Joel, works by zapping away the emotional core of the memories, which kicks off a degradation process. David Lee/Focus Features/Kobal/ShutterstockĪ thing to keep in mind: While "erasure" is a word used often when talking about Eternal Sunshine (and indeed is used explicitly in the script), the correct word is "degradation." The movie's science-fiction, Wilkinson's Dr. With a nonlinear narrative and dreamy, impossible visuals, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the movie you need to stream on Netflix before it leaves on December 31. But in the midst of doing so, he comes to a revelation, which kicks off a desperate struggle to keep Clementine, or at least his memories of her, alive. is the most beige city doctor's office staffed by Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Dunst, and a scummy Elijah Wood.) Heartbroken, Joel seeks the same procedure. (Eschewing the clean white surfaces and tech villains a more careless film would envision, the offices of the groundbreaking Lacuna, Inc.

In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - a phrase coined by 18th century English poet Alexander Pope, to mean "ignorance is bliss" - lanky, depressed Joel (Jim Carrey) learns that his ex-girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet) erased him from her memory thanks to an experimental procedure. This hit thriller, disguised as a romance, is the dreamy and wistful mid-aughts classic you need to stream on Netflix before it leaves on December 31 (in the U.S.)

Under the direction of Michel Gondry and screenwriters Gondry, Pierre Bismuth, and Charlie Kaufman, that idea is explored and revealed to be an even more agonizing and soul-destroying process, in their 2004 nonlinear science-fiction film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. So, what if you got rid of them? (And no, we don't mean ghosting.) feels, we may feel similarly about our own memories when they're haunted by someone, be it a former lover or whoever simply "got away." The pang of their absence and the yearning for their presence can sometimes be so overwhelming, you'd wish you never met them at all. While most of us will never know exactly how A.J.

revealed that her unusual memory was a burden. "I'm just there, like so intensely sometimes it really hurts."Ī.J. "When I think of the spring of '81, I can really physically feel it," she said. In an interview with NPR, "A.J." said she can recall moments from her past with such specificity that memories to her are like "running a movie." In 2006, a 40-year-old woman known as "A.J." revealed her movie-like memory.
