But what if you want to repel instead of attract erstwhile sweethearts? Lacuna Inc promises to banish all trace of unwanted lovers by erasing the memory clear of all recollection of them.

Neurotic sap Joel (Carrey) confronts Lacuna head honcho Dr Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) when his bohemian girlfriend Clementine (Winslet) acts as if she has never met him.

Out of desperation, he decides to submit himself to the same process and have all memories of their rollercoaster relationship excised - tit-for-tat - from his mind.

Where many a film would relish the opportunity to wallow in sci-fi psycho babble, Mierzwiak's reponse to the query of brain damage risk goes as follows:

Technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage. It's on a par with a night of heavy drinking, nothing you'll miss.

Frenchman Michel Gondry may be the director, but it's writer Charlie Kaufman - the pen behind Being John Malkovich and Adaptation - that's the draw here.

He's created a complex, sophisticated romantic comedy where the brain cells will be made to work as hard as the chuckle muscles.

Carrey drops the mugging and gurning to deliver a nuanced performance where a tiny haunted flicker of the eyes says more than a thousand bug-eyed stares.

Winslet, too, revels in the role of a bohemian firecracker exploding in the face of an enchanted Carrey then wanting him wiped from her history.

Compared to Spike Jonze, Gondry isn't quite in the same league as a directorial conduit for Kaufman's inspired writing.

Over-reliant on wacky imagery, a straight down the line narrative approach might have worked better but the result is never less than entertaining.

Despite its top draw cast - Dunst and Ruffalo are happy to take small but significant supporting roles as a pair of lusty mind technicians - this won't appeal to the multiplex hordes.

So keep it to yourself. If you can remember who you're supposed to be going to see it with.

Tim Evans