Movie Review: 500 Days of Summer (2009, Directed by Marc Webb)

500 Days of Summer manages to walk a fine line between romanticism and cynicism on the subject of love. We come out of the experience both saddened and optimistic. The annoying narrator at the start of the film announces that “this is not a love story.” I beg to differ. It is a love story, just not the kind we are accustomed to seeing on the big screen.

Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an aspiring architect, spends his days writing slogans for a greeting card company. Not exactly a dream job. However, I have to confess I’m a bit jealous. Getting paid to write bad poetry all day? … wow! It’s nearly impossible to get paid writing good poetry. Anyway, I digress … Summer (Zooey Deschanel) works at the same greeting card company. She is an “assistant” for a higher-up in the company, though what exactly she does all day is never seen. Boy meets girl. Boy has a quirky and, at times, touching relationship with girl for approximately 500 days. Audience doesn’t get a straight linear story, but rather director jumps around from day to day. (OK, I’ll stop writing without the use of articles … it’s annoying me too).

This hipster rom-com’s unorthodox cinematic technique is generating a lot of buzz. First time feature director Marc Webb uses split-screen, non-chronological storytelling, and an abruptly-placed musical dance number to depict Tom and Summer’s relationship. If you’re hearing echoes of Woody Allen, you would be right. In some ways, 500 Days of Summer feels like my generation’s Annie Hall. Though, I would argue, the former doesn’t even approach the blissful perfection of the latter. As interesting as the film’s technique is, the lead performances are what impressed me the most. Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are truly gifted. There is not one misguided step in either performance. They subdue their characters’ quirkiness with a kind of naturalism that makes them not only fun to watch, but believable.

Perhaps it is the fact that this film seems tailored to my own personal sensibilities and taste that I resist embracing it as a full-blown masterpiece. The fascinating set-pieces of the film’s opening half give way to a series of interesting, though generally uninspired conversations between the couple in the middle. The problem is not the lead actors’ performances, but rather a lack of imagination in writing and direction. Although my interest waned a bit in the middle, later on I felt I was back on solid ground. The film’s final scene feels heavily contrived and strangely derivative of Pedro Almodovar’s masterwork Talk to Her. Still, the wild creativity of the movie’s better parts more than makes up for its few misguided steps.

500 Days of Summer is an ideal anecdote to all the formulaic, boring romantic comedies out there. It seems like almost the perfect date movie. So many guys hate romantic comedies, I believe, because they so often reduce the male characters to hackneyed stereotypes. To be fair, many action pictures commit the same sin with their female characters. In 500 Days of Summer we finally have a film that depicts both lead characters as complex, flawed, and fascinating individuals. Summer is strong-willed, independent, and witty. Tom is creative, sensitive, and introspective. Despite the film’s flaws, I would much rather spend time with Summer and Tom than any couple in any other comedy on the screen right now. I have to confess, though, that if I were fortunate enough to be in Tom’s position, I would have probably broken up with Summer much more quickly. Ringo is her favorite Beatle, for heaven’s sake!