But when Joel gets home, he finds he made a similar tape of Clem, and when she comes over, they decide to try a relationship for a second time, even if it is doomed to fail.
Midway through the procedure, Joel realizes he is making a terrible mistake, and attempts to thwart the erasure.
On the way back to Joel's house, Clem plays her Lacuna tape, on which she says some mean things about him. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet play Joel and Clementine, a couple coming out of a failed relationship, who decide to undergo a questionable medical procedure to erase all memories of each other.
Joel ends up driving Clem home, going inside, and eventually reliving their date on the frozen Charles River.
While in Montauk, Joel sees Clem, and the two start to talk.
Then Joel wakes up, completely unaware of what has happened.
In the end, Joel just up and decides to enjoy his last few moments in his first happy memory with Clem.
Joel tries hiding in memories unrelated to Clem, eventually delving into repressed memories-but there's just no stopping the erasure.
After getting past all the bad memories, Joel makes it to the happy ones and decides to try and stop the procedure in order to retain his memory.
Joel starts on a journey backward in time, as all his Clem memories (or clemories-trademark Shmoop) are erased.
He goes to Lacuna to have his memories of Clem erased.
Distraught, Joel decides to do the same.
But Clem doesn't recognize Joel, and after going to Rob and Carrie, Joel finds out that Clem's had him erased from her memory.
Eventually, Joel and Clem get in a big argument, and Joel buys Clem an early Valentine's Day present to make up for some nasty things he said.
They have happy times, like when they're lying on the ice or hiking through the woods they also have unhappy times, like when they argue about having kids. They hit it off, even though he's scared.