(500) Thumbs Up for Days of Summer
*** 1/2*
An opening disclaimer sets the tone for the rest of the movie: ironic and so true. The movie is fun, frustrating, simple, difficult, triumphant, and depressing, much like the nature of any loving relationship. (500) Days of Summer is a traditional love story told in a nontraditional fashion, combining and contrasting over-the-top fantasy with harsh reality. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy loves girl, girl doesn’t love boy because her divorced parents destroyed the very idea of true love sending the boy into a downward spiral of sorrow and recklessness.
Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is an aspiring architect that writes greeting cards for a living. Of course, he has an even greater aspiration to one day find true love, a curse and a blessing that was embedded in his innocent mind after watching “The Graduate” at a young and tender age. His life changes completely when a new Executive Assistant joins the office: Summer Finn (the beautiful Zooey Deschanel), and she’s like a modern-day Audrey Hepburn. Who wouldn’t fall in love with an Audrey Hepburn? A drunken office karaoke session and a long-awaited kiss later, Tom and Summer Finn are goofing off and holding hands at an IKEA. (Aww, Tom and Finn. How cute.)
Their relationship is reminiscent of Joel and Clementine from “Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.” Like Eternal, their story is told nonlinearly. We ping-pong between different stages of their relationship, from Day (1) to Day (500), revealing both the beauty and the tragedy of Tom’s pursuit to win Summer Finn.
The difference is, Tom doesn’t have a machine to erase any trace of Summer, but must instead live with the pain that scarred him so deeply. What Tom does have is a great support system: two close buddies who care for him sincerely but have no clue how to handle this unhealthy situation, and a kid sister who happens to say all the right things.
Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are perfect in this movie. He is tossed around both emotionally and physically, from extreme highs to terrible lows, and if you don’t cheer for him, then you have no heart. She just owns the screen, and everything about her makes it easy to see why a guy would spend (500) days pining for this woman.
There are some amazing moments in this movie, beyond the content. Like Eternal’s Michel Gondry, Director Marc Webb started his career making music videos (“All That I’ve Got” by The Used and “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” by MCR, amongst other countless greats). It’s no wonder why his feature film debut is as artistic and as entertaining as it truly is. This is Day (1) of a film career that is no doubt going to be an enjoyable one to watch.
