500 Days Of Summer
Starring: Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-LevittDirector: Marc Webb
Year of Release: 2009
(500) Days of Summer is a story about a guy named Tom falling in love with a girl named Summer and the entire course of their relationship over a year and a half. But what makes it an interesting and engaging story is a combination of the original way the story unfolds combined with empathetic characters that feel very genuine. This is a love story I can see happening around me in real life. It’s not a fantasy, a happily-ever-after, or overly-dramatic. In fact it’s pretty simple and uncomplicated, as life often can be. And it’s uncomplicated-ness is it’s charm.
The clever story technique employed here involves taking each day of their relationship and jumping around the numbered days 1-500 to piece together how their relationship began, unfolded, and eventually fell apart. The natural highs and lows, the awkward moments, the painful conflicts, the expectations and realities. There is a brilliant sequence where Tom, riding high on a positive post-breakup experience with Summer, gets invited to her place for a roof-top party and we are shown how his high-hopes for the evening play out next to the all too crushing reality. It’s a scene most people can relate to and reinforces the sense in the film that life is rarely one beautiful scene after another. It’s messy, unplanned, and unpredictable, but that is also it’s source of hope. An unexpected turn, a chance encounter, a moment of intimacy can come seemingly out-of-the-blue and change our entire perspective.
The acting is great here as well. I’m a big Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan and he does his usual brilliant job here. There is a classic dance sequence in the middle of the film that beautifully articulates the feeling of the euphoria the character has, and JGL pulls it off effortlessly. Zoey Deschanel is a perfect fit for her character, however, I often feel like she is just playing herself. I suspect that Summer is really just Zoey with scripted dialogue. Nevertheless, I believe these characters and I believe this relationship. These feel like real people, not two-dimensional caricatures.
(500) Days of Summer is warm, endearing and clever film that rises above a lot of other “relationshop” flicks, even the cool, hipster indie ones. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. Go see it.
