(500) Days of Summer

What it's about:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Tom, a greeting-card writer who dreams of becoming an architect and finding his true love. Zooey Deschanel plays Summer, a vintage-looking beauty whose ideas about love are entirely modern. As Tom remembers his 500 days with Summer, his mind jumps from moment to moment, largely thinking of the good times in their trouble-filled relationship.

What we thought:

Most people have experienced the delicious torture of an unrequited love affair that began promisingly as a wild ride, and ended like a wounded donkey limping under the load of awkward moments, disagreements, dashed hopes and promises of friendship.

(500) Days of Summer promises bucket-loads of ironic wit and meta-narrative to offset the soppiness inherent in any story of a sensitive loser-boy who falls for the girl who’s gorgeous, special and gifted.  In 500 days, this takes the form of an amusing voiceover, clever animated sequences, a tweety bird, and friendly stereotyped best boy friends representing the relationship extremes of "married since high school" and "never had a date", with our hero stuck in the middle with Summer.

Zooey "blue eyes" Deschanel (Yes Man, The Happening) stars as Summer Finn opposite Joseph "sleepy-face" Gordon-Levitt (Brick, Stop-Loss) as Tom. She plays it all quirky in her sixties outfits, with her living-for-the-moment attitude to life, love and romance in LA. Tom can’t see the ticking love time bomb, or doesn’t want to see it, even after it blows up in his face. The first 30 minutes of the movie are absolutely hilarious. 

Deschanel is grippingly beautiful as Summer, but the most noticeable thing about this script is the timeless tidbits of wisdom it imparts: You can’t always get what you want. You can’t force love (or anything) to happen. The devil’s in the details. And there is no such thing as fate, or "the one"…

Or is there? Without giving away the ending, I can’t help feeling that right at the last minute, (500) Days loses the plot and capitulates to Hollywood’s worst romantic notions. Something a bit more mysterious would have done nicely, given the tone of the rest of the movie.

Overall? It’s about time American cinema gave romantic classics like Say Anything and High Fidelity a 21st century update.  And for all its small flaws, fans of offbeat character-driven films like Juno (2007), or Garden State (2004) will really enjoy this insatiably retro little film.