Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

In Michel Gondry's innovative romantic comedy (based upon Charlie Kaufman's script) - a bizarre, artful and absurdist romantic fantasy:

• the opening prologue of meek Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) on a Long Island RR car and traveling to Montauk Point State Park in the off-season, to visit a frigid cold beach; unbeknownst to him, he again met and spoke to his uninhibited, quirky, free-spirited, tangerine-colored sweatshirt-wearing, multi-colored-hair ex-girlfriend Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) on the train trip back - they would soon start their relationship afresh after both of them had selectively erased memories of their past difficult 2-year romance
• the flashbacked scene of Joel's bitter break-up with his loving girlfriend - uninhibited Clementine; when he attempted to win her back by buying her a necklace pendant (made from a hand-painted shell) from her favorite store as an early Valentine's Day gift, he met her at her place of employment, Barnes and Noble bookstore - but he mournfully realized that she didn't know him ("She looks at me like she doesn't even know who I am...Why would she do that to me?"); he learned that she had all traces of him and their relationship deleted from her memory (to create a "spotless mind" and "move on"), by a New York City company known as Lacuna, Inc.
• despairing, Joel decided to undergo the same memory-erasure procedure to find peace of mind; there were many reverse-order flashbacks Joel experienced when erasing his relationship's memories - as inept, memory-erasing technicians from the erasure firm Lacuna Inc., Stan Fink (Mark Ruffalo) and Patrick (Elijah Wood) and office assistant Mary (Kirsten Dunst), acted irresponsibly (drinking, having sex) during the erasure process

Lacuna Removed Memories From Clementine and Then Joel
Lacuna's Record of the Removal of Clementine's Memories of Joel	Lacuna's Erasure of Joel's Memories of Clementine

• the many imaginative recollections recessed deeply in Joel's brain that he was struggling to preserve - beginning with the most painful memories of the doomed couple's recent breakup in 2004, progressing forward to their earliest, best memories in 2003; to foil erasure efforts, he hid inside some of his childhood scenarios when four years old.(including those of his childhood when he went to hide with Clementine in the kitchen, and they bathed together in a sink); he pleaded with the erasure technicians when he saw the memory of them sharing intimate secrets and making love under a comforter: ("Please let me keep this memory, just this one")

A Flood of Memories During Erasure Process

• the last remaining memory of Clementine - the day he first met her at a beach house in Montauk and she was eating a piece of chicken from his plate; but then soon after, the beach house structure disintegrated, crumbled (and flooded) as it was erased in his mind and Joel became regretful and scared as he left Clementine forever: ("I wish I'd stayed too. Now I wish I'd stayed. I wish I'd done a lot of things. I wish I had - I wish I'd stayed, I do"); he departed from the house but then returned briefly for a goodbye when Clementine loudly whispered a secret to him as their images blurred: "Bye, Joel...Meet me at Montauk"
• the last sequence at Joel's apartment in his hallway, when Joel and Clementine vowed that it was worthwhile to start their relationship all over again - trusting and hoping that it would work out this second time around: Clementine: "I'm not a concept, Joel. I'm just a f--ked-up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind. I'm not perfect" Joel: "I can't see anything that I don't like about you." Clementine: "But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I'll get bored with you and feel trapped because that's what happens with me"; their last lines to each other were "Okay, okay, okay, okay"