This beautiful movie which experiments with the pain and the happiness that romance brings with it. It deals with the expectations of a hard-in-love young man, and how his whole reasoning behind his feelings is about to be tested with who he believes is his soul-mate. Her name is Summer, and she is beautiful, charming, and honest. She does not believe in finding love for the first time, and does not see love in the point of view Toms sees it in.
That is why when both Tom and Summer start being closer with each other, Tom is confused about what kind of relationship they are in. It turns out, Summer leads him down a path that will inevitably make him learn about how real life works. He believed that Summer was his one true love, and is even abstruck when it turns out Summer is the one that found someone she can call her ’soul-mate’. This reinforces his ideas that love is unexpected, and like the final scene says, there are just ’coincidences’ that lead to it.
It’s rare to find a romantic comedy that has something original to say. Too often do we get the standard outline for these types of movies: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall deeply in love, boy cheats on girl inexplicably, girl finds out about this -- leaves, boy asks for forgiveness in an obligatory scene at girl’s front step (added points for it being in the rain), boy and girl get married. In stark contrast, "(500) Days of Summer" is a movie that literally tells you within the first minute that, while it is a story about boy meets girl, it is not a love story. We then get a title card for day two hundred and something, where we learn that Summer, Tom’s love, wants to end the relationship.
If you’re wondering why everything is disjointed, that isn’t because true art is incomprehensible; it’s because to watch it in chronological order is to watch a relationship dismantle before your eyes. To watch it going from day 488 to 244 to 1 is to watch the highs and lows and be able to understand the significance of everything: every fight, every smile, and every bit of deterioration. Also, for a quicker answer: it works this way. It works as we watch Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) reflect on their failed relationship, break up, then watch their first encounters, because we don’t feel a bit of being confused by the characters. On the contrary, Tom and Summer seem as comfortable to us as our right hand. I’ve heard so much about this movie from friends, and the guys that I talk to all say that they are Tom, and they’ve had somebody like Summer go their way and successfully wreck their lives -- but that they’re better to have gone through the highs and lows with her.
The film isn’t that much on plot as much as it is on taking extended glimpses of snapshots. A synopsis is not warranted for this review. Suffice it to say, here are the ground rules: Tom is a guy that has wanted to find that woman to love forever since being a child and watching "The Graduate" on a small television. Summer is a girl that is indifferent with the idea of relationships (largely due to her mother and father divorcing when she was young). Here are two different types of personalities and the rest of the movie is something of a wrestling match between two opposing morals. If you’ve seen as many romantic comedies as I have, you’ll watch the first half of "(500) Days of Summer" just sure that Tom or Summer will inch away from their firmly planted ideals, and then spend the second half sure that the filmmakers know exactly what they are doing. Sit back and relax, because I can say with absolute conviction: you’re being driven around by an experienced driver.
I love this movie beyond words. I love that it makes me question the very idea of fate and destiny, and it does so without prodding. I love that it is so relatable, that I’m sure some screenwriters have got to be kicking themselves: "why didn’t I think of that idea first?!" I love the playful way the film is structured, edited, and presented to us -- ever so sure to make sure and not forget anything and give us a plot hole. At one point, there is a dance number to display Tom’s enjoyment; at another, a black and white foreign film with a clown and tons of balloons shows us Tom’s angst. Towards the end, we get a split screen as we watch as Tom’s expectations to an event -- going to one of Summer’s parties -- is inter-cut with what really happens. At first, the differences are subtle: Summer’s face looks a lot more joyful in the expectations; she gives him just a hug in real life, etc. Towards the end of this scene, the differences are as stark as night and day. And that’s where I say to myself: I’ve been there. We have all been there, where a situation we play out in our heads numerous times goes very different (read: wrong) from what we expect.
And that’s the genius of the film: the whole movie is full of these moments. To watch it after a relationship has ended is to go through a very lethargic experience; to watch it with your significant other is to leave open a very awkward drive home.
It’s probably the best movie of its kind in decades, and there are two reasons for this: the script, penned by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, is wonderful; director Marc Webb, whom I am astonished to think is making his directing debut here, takes it to the screen without seeming bogged down by the unusual format. Also, the casting is flawless. As Summer, Zooey Deschanel is wonderful at playing the mysterious love object to Tom. We may not know that much about her character beyond what Tom sees, but we do see an incredible amount of vulnerability and joy. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom, though, is the biggest casting hurdle that the movie must cross; if we don’t find him relatable, the movie is doomed to be something that at most we could appreciate but never really latch on to because we don’t know where they’re coming from. He has average good looks and build to show us that he is indeed like an average Joe off the street. His dialogue is credible for his circumstances, too. At one point on day one hundred and something, he laments to Summer that he is tired of her refusal to call him her "boyfriend". We know that Summer would act like this -- and so does Tom: she told him her limits fifteen to twenty minutes ago on day twenty-something.
(500) Days of Summer is an excellent film, and one of the best ones I have seen in 2009.This movie deserves a very enthusiastic recommendation, because it is not common to see a romantic comedy with so much ingenuity and intelligence.