Jim found Kate's stories about shooting Sense and Sensibility fascinating.

Usually when I review a romantic comedy, even a good one, I have to give a nod to the formula. You know: boy and girl meet, preferably cute. Attraction, obstacle, all seems lost. One chases the other to the airport. Big kiss. Credits roll. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's tried and true. Proven. Comfortable.

Yeah, that's not really an issue here.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is funny and romantic, dramatic and fantastical, heartfelt and challenging and anything but formulaic. It's about Joel and Clementine (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet), a couple whose two-year relationship has ended badly. Joel finds out that Clem has undergone a procedure that has completely erased her memories of him. Shocked and hurt, he decides to obliterate her from his own mind. As technicians zap memory after memory, working backwards through their romance, Joel loses first the stormy conclusion, then the disillusioned middle before reliving the sweet and passionate beginning. It's here, of course, that he remembers why he fell in love with Clementine in the first place and decides he'd like to keep these memories, thank you very much. What follows is a chase through his own brain, as he tries to hang onto a few of his moments with Clem.

"I hate when Tom Wilkinson follows me home."

Can you tell that it was written by Charlie Kaufman, the inventive mind behind such head-scratching delights as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation? Kaufman has a talent for getting to the humanity of his idiosyncratic characters and using an outrageous concept to illustrate emotional truths. Here a science fiction story contains a realistic and poignant portrait of a relationship. Are Joel and Clementine meant to be together? I don't know. We see them awkward around each other, crazy about each other, irritated with each other, and learning lessons they're doomed to forget. But I suppose you would really have to love somebody a lot to want to completely erase him from your memory. The story is both heartbreaking and hopeful.

Director Michel Gondry, whose feature debut was the Kaufman-penned Human Nature, brings the story to life with sensitivity and an inspired visual style. Gondry illustrates Joel's disappearing memories with simple, elegant special effects, seamlessly integrated with spare settings and deliberately unrefined, handheld camera work. The movie is full of lovely little touches, like the way the music played in fits and starts during an early scene between Joel and Clem, mirroring their awkward attempts at conversation. Gondry is a major new talent, and I can't wait to see what he does after this. In the meantime, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a gem of a movie, moving and thought-provoking and funny.

Gorilla Pants rating: 4 out of 4 bananas