The reason I claim this as the best love story, ever, is because its the only one I have seen that tells the fundamental truth of love in a long term relationship.
Its not a comedy.
Using a science fiction premise and some of the most elegantly subtle special effects I have ever seen... the film presents the idea of being able to do away with our bad experiences by having them literally deleted.
Could we be happier without the heartache we have suffered? Or is that heartache rooted in our sense of loss over memories that were, once, cherished?

The film does not gloss over the hard parts... but cuts to the core of what it is to love another human being... good and bad.
The erosion of our thoughtless actions and words on each other and the idea we have of what love ought to be.

And, in the last lines of the last scene, the film offers every one of us redemption for those small sins against love which we all commit.

This DVD was a gift to my daughter, and we watched it with her. She says it's the best movie she's ever seen. I wasn't quite as enthralled as she was, but I enjoyed it very much anyway.

When the movie opens, Joel (Jim Carrey) impulsively skips work and goes to the shore, where he meets a blue-haired woman, Clementine (Kate Winslet) and they hit it off. But then strange things start happening.

Turns out, Clementine has had boyfriend Joel erased from her mind. When he gets the letter from the memory-erasing clinic informing him of this, he decides to have her erased from his mind as well.

The movie jumps back and forward in time, which can be a little disorienting, though I think that was the point. Oddly enough, the story flows well that way, as things learned in one scene impact the meaning of the next regardless of where they fit in the chronology, and the story is much more effective than if it had been told in strict chronological order.

I suspect part of the difference between my daughter's "best movie ever" and my 4.5 stars is that I've read and watched a lot more science fiction than she has, and the concept of erasing memories isn't a new one for me. I did enjoy the details of the technique in this one, though I'd have liked to see it explored a little more thoroughly. For example, much was made of needing to find every single object connected with the person to be erased, but we never saw the consequences of missing something.

I was surprised, though, that she liked the romance of the movie--she's usually pretty cynical about such things. I, of course, loved the "true love conquers all" as well as the twists when things started going wrong.

If you've ever had a relationship....I think you'll enjoy this well produced film. The acting is good, the direction is good and the story is unique and well written.