I’ve heard people say that choosing their Top 10 is super hard, because, well, there’s a ton of amazing movies. And I largely agree with them. Narrowing all the movies you’ve seen down to the best 10 is an outrageous ask; but then you have to start asking yourself, what are the movies after which I walked away saying, “I’ve never seen anything like that before, and I’m better for it (that last bit is critical…I walked out of Solaris saying I’d never seen anything like that before, but I also said other things). Eternal Sunshine met both criteria on first viewing. Then, with each subsequent viewing, it more firmly wedged itself into my Top 10.

Here, during my third installment in my Top 10 list, I am outting myself because, yet again, the writing is my hero here (and, yet again, the Academy would agree with me). And it’s not that a movie can’t be good without a good screenplay, it’s just that I won’t like it. Most of the time it’s the actual dialogue that gets me (or makes me hate a movie forever. See: every Nicholas Sparks adaptation). And Eternal Sunshine does have fantastic dialogue, so believably contrived that you forget its contrived. But for me, its the bones of the story that makes this movie so sticky.

I’ve said before, good filmmaking tells its audience one (usually simple) thing, rested in the safety of the complex. Eternal Sunshine has complexity in spades, but each layer is so accessible and relatable its not hard to keep it all in order. Then it tells us something smart about relationships, but we’ll get to that at the end.

The screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman, clearly had earned enough relationship merit badges to write these two characters so empathetically. The thing about this type of film, one that is so humanity-centered, is that it leaves me a firm believer that you can only write what you know. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you need to have boarded the Nostromo to write a compelling Sci Fi screenplay, but when it comes to human relationships, especially romantic ones, nothing beats the real thing.

[spoilers coming. movie-ruining spoilers.]

The writers introduce us to Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) in wintery Montauk. It is also, supposedly, the first time they meet each other. We get Joel’s VO the whole time in this first scene, so we are a little sympathetic to his general social anxiety, but its not cheap, expositional VO — its so revelatory of Joel and helps us peel back the layers of their eventual crisis. He’s insecure, aware, vulnerable, and smart. Clementine is open, confident, bristly, and fun — and not afraid to make Joel squirm a bit. Then, after something crazy like 17 minutes, in one of the most powerful moments in my Top 10, we cut to Joel sobbing in a car, as Beck’s Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime plays and the opening credits role. Opening. Credits.

Of course, through clever screenwriting, the audience comes to learn that this couple was not meeting for the first time in Montauk, but rather after they have both undergone a treatment, during which they had each other entirely erased from their memories (which explains why Joel has never heard of “Oh My Darling Clementine” in the opening scene). I don’t care what anyone tells me, screenwriter Kaufman has wanted to do this to someone. Have not all of us? It’s such a brilliant premise for a movie and I can’t stand how much I love it.

Once you figure out what in the world is going on, the meat of the film is effectively a 90-minute montage of Joel and Clementine’s beauty and ashes, during almost the entirety of which, they are trying to stop the erasing process, which can’t be undone.

I have heard debate/confusion about the ending, but all those people are stupid. The ending is a supremely authentic and hopeful prognosis of the human capacity to love. They realize (through Kirsten Dunst, of all people) that they erased each other, mere days before their supposed meet cute in Montauk from the opening scene. Clementine realizes she has to get out of there, because they will inevitably fall into the same pattern of boredom, annoyance, and cruelty, once she starts down this road anew with Joel. She says as much to Joel. This will happen again. And he says, “Okay.” She waits, laughs a smidge, and say, “Okay.” Then we see the same scene of them chasing each other, playing in the snow on the beach in Montauk play 3x. Will the same thing happen again? Oh yeah. Will it be worth it? So worth it. What will the ride be like? Hard to say, but let’s do it.

I am better having seen this.

10/10 — there is nothing I wish was different about this movie. Meet me in Montauk.