"Clementine Kruczynski has had Joel Barish erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again. Thank you." - screenplay, 1st draft
Release: 19 March 2004 (USA)
The Pitch: Introverted boy meets extroverted girl. Boy and girl have a relationship. Relationship ends. Girl undergoes a medical procedure to erase boy's existence - and their relationship - from her memory. Boy freaks out and has the same procedure done to himself... but halfway through, as he relives each memory in reverse-chronological order (bad break-up to great beginning, all played out on-screen for us), he realises that some of those memories are worth holding onto. Boy tries to fight against the erasure. This is Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry's topsy-turvy spin on romantic comedy, an original script based on an idea by Pierre Bismuth - a conceptual artist friend of Michel's. It's also attained the biggest cult following, and the most critical/commercial success, of any Kaufman film to date.
Director: Michel Gondry
Cast: Jim Carrey (Joel Barish), Kate Winslet (Clementine Kruczynski), Tom Wilkinson (Dr. Howard Mierzwiak), Kirsten Dunst (Mary), Elijah Wood (Patrick), Mark Ruffalo (Stan)
Two drafts of the screenplay are available for download, plus a Farsi translation of the shooting script. They can be found in the Scripts/Writing section of this website.
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