Strange movie. Joel and Clementine meet at a picnic at the beach. They date for a while, but Clementine decides she’s bored with Joel, so she contacts a company called Lacuna and has Joel erased from her mind. Joel inadvertently learns about it and decides to have the procedure himself. This is done by mapping all the memories he has of Clementine, then having the Lacuna technicians come to his place one night and erase his memories. While this is taking place, Joel, in his memories, decides he wants to remember Clementine and fights the procedure. Meanwhile, Patrick, one of the technicians, has stolen Clementine’s memories of Joel and is using them to seduce Clementine herself. The other technician, Stan, invites the receptionist from Lacuna, Mary, over to Joel’s apartment. When Joel fights the procedure, he goes off the computer map that is erasing his memories. Stan calls Howard, the head of Lacuna. Howard fixes the problem, but Joel keeps fighting and Howard has to keep fixing. While he is there, Mary admits to Howard that she has a crush on him. Howard’s wife shows up and tells Mary that she and Howard had been involved before and that Mary had Howard erased from her memory.

When Joel wakes up, all memories of Clementine are erased, but he is compelled to go to the beach where he first met her. She is there, and they start dating again. Meanwhile, Mary raids the Lacuna files and sends everyone information on the people they had erased. Clementine hears why she erased Joel and he finds out why he erased her. They decide to stay together anyway.

• From IMDB — The movie is based on the following quote from an Alexander Pope poem:

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

Very interesting. Very strange. One hilarious part where Joel and Clementine are watching a drive-in movie they can’t hear. They make up lines. “Oh, Antoine!” “Don’t call me Antoine. My name is Wally.” “But I can’t love a man named Wally.” “Look there are people coming out of your butt.” I had a bad cold when I watched it, and my laughter at these lines started a coughing spell.