While some would deal with a bad breakup by destroying a former loved one’s presents or prized possessions, Michael Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is a world where painful memories are not only forgotten but destroyed completely.

In Charlie Kaufman’s latest descent into the male psyche, the twisted writer weaves a complex and complicated tale that ultimately reads like any love story centered on the powers of love to overcome diversity. Love can now conquer memory loss as well.

And like Kaufman’s previous works, “Adaptation” and “Being John Malkovich,” “Sunshine” is intricate and interesting, but also bogged down in its writer’s own sense of self-satisfaction and attempts at being overly clever.

Mired in spiraling twists in time is the story of Joel and Clementine, played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, respectively. Somewhere along the way, Joel and Clementine were involved with one another. The relationship ended rather badly, and Clementine went to Lacuna – an office dedicated to erasing painful memories – to have Joel literally erased from her consciousness. Joel, after realizing his fate with Clementine, chooses to respond in kind only to have regrets in mid-procedure (though these events are not told in that order).

When asked if there is the possibility of brain damage from the procedure, the doctor merely replies the procedure is brain damage.

There also is a far less compelling subplot dealing with the staff of Lacuna (including Elijah Wood as Patrick and Kirsten Dunst as Mary), but the heart of “Eternal Sunshine” is the emotional love story between Carrey’s neurotic but lovable Joel and Winslet’s gregarious and multicolored Clementine. It is this love that both drives the film to its conclusion while keeping viewers interested, and it also adds an element of cliched sentiment to an otherwise otherworldly film.

In the midst of the muddled plot is the wonderful performances of both Winslet and Carrey, both of whom offer their strongest showings in recent years. And despite the fact both characters are literally losing their minds over the course of the film, they both tie the movie together surprisingly well.

Like Kaufman’s other works, “Eternal Sunshine” bounces around and delves so deeply into the human mind that it’s hard to tell just where reality and twisted fantasy, – or unnecessary flashback – occur. While some of these quirks endeared Kaufman to every schmuck with a pen and a publication, his films can also be jarring or simply insipid in Kaufman’s obsession with seeming clever.

Christopher Nolan’s 2000 film “Memento” ushered in a string of films laden with various elements of human memory and lapse, but “Memento” this is not. Despite having enough twists and turns to make it worth a few repeat viewings, “Eternal Sunshine” is little more than a romance that just happens to be a little twisted.

If Kaufman really wanted to be clever, he could have gone for something a little less cliche than “love conquers all.”