Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ending explained

What happens

Joel wakes with no memory of Clementine and meets her again on the Montauk beach. Then they hear the tapes where each explained why they erased the other. Hurt but undeterred, they decide to try again, knowing how it may go.

The last line

"Okay."

Two readings

1 · Fate repeating itselfThey are drawn together and will likely repeat the same mistakes.

2 · A chosen riskKnowing the worst, they choose each other anyway, and that choice is the point.

What it says

The film argues that pain is the price of having loved, and that erasing it erases the self that loved. So it ends not on a cure, but on two people accepting the hurt, together.