(500) Days of summer (Webb, 2009)

[ayaa1977]

Synopsis:  (500) Days of Summer tells the story of Tom Hansen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, an architect who works as a greeting card writer. He falls in love with the corky new assistance in his company Summer Finn, Zooey Deschanel. The film starts with a voiceover declaring "This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know up front, this is not a love story", and the gimmick is, everybody knows that except its protagonist Tom played. Played in non-chronologically, each scene is introduced by which of the 500 days it is.

Author's Note: The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Especially you Jenny Beckman. Bitch.    

This is a very entertaining and fairly original romantic comedy, and its gimmick makes it the more interesting. By knowing the fate of the relation up front you are not distracted by the guessing game or by the predictability of the run of the mill romantic comedy. There a reversal of roles here, where the man is the whiny romantic, and the girl is practical realist. We know up front the Summer is not confined by the conventional roles of romance, she says up front that she doesn't want a boyfriend and that she doesn't believe in love.

"Summer: We've been like Sid and Nancy for months now.
Tom: Summer, Sid stabbed Nancy, seven times with a kitchen knife, I mean we have some disagreements but I hardly think I'm Sid Vicious.
Summer: No I'm Sid.
Tom: Oh, so I'm Nancy..."

The two leads play their roles effortlessly. The days early into their relation where they are in synch shows a great deal of chemistry. There is a scene in IKEA where they are playing house, and it is one of the funniest and cutest, in a good way, scenes I have seen in long time. Also the scene of him walking to work happy after spending the night with Summer, and suddenly everybody in the street is greeting and high-fiving him, then he is dancing with the girls, then people start joining him in a dance just like a music video. He had found his muse and he is spreading joy and inspiration all around.  

McKenzie: Hey, don't you have like 20 cards to write by Friday?
Tom: Nope, all done.
McKenzie: Really? Well, could you help me with mine? Because I'm running out of ways to say "Congratulations". So far, I've got: "Congrats", "Good job" and "Well done".
Tom: Hmmm. How about..."Every day you make me proud. But today you get a card."
McKenzie: Shit, that's good!
Tom: I know.

But then there are the scenes later on, when she leaves him. He is depressed, bitter, and devastated, and he is the a source of misery and cynicism. His friends and co-workers trying to help him to no avail. This is really a testimony to Gordon-Levitt's performance, he is such a talented young man.

Marc Webb the director comes from a music video background, and in his debut features film proves a promising talent that hopefully wont succumb to the roles of Hollywood and start making ordinary so-so flicks, because that would be a shame. My rating is 4/5

[madali]

(500) Days of summer (Webb, 2009)
IMDB Link

“I love her smile. I love her hair. I love her knees. I love how she licks her lips before she talks. I love her heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. I love it when she sleeps.”

The tagline for this film describes it as perfectly as a tagline can and most tag lines are generally a horrible indication of the film. But here one of the taglines for the film is, “This is not a love story. This is a story about love.”

Perfect description of the film, because the film is about Love, with a capital L, underlined, bolded, and probably circled twice. It is not necessary about the happiness that comes from love or finding love but LOVE as a whole, as a journey, as a discovery, as a success and a failure, love as an emotional, uncontrollable exploding nuclear bomb in a person.

Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and falls in love. The movie moves through the times in non-chronological order. We get a caption before a scene to help us know which day of Summer it is, and it goes back and forth, and we see Tom at different stages of Love. From happy to depressed, not in a slow transition but in jerks, as we move back and forth, and sideways, to see Tom struggling.

And the whole thing is cute and charming, like few films about love are. Easily the best film of 2009 for putting a smile on that grumpy face of mine.

“I hate her crooked teeth. I hate the way she smacks her lips. I hate her knooby knees. I hate that cockroach shape splotch on her neck.”

4/5

[ayaa1977]

I am glad you too enjoyed the film. I watched in-flight and the small screen and all the distraction around me in the plane tend to make me enjoy the film I watch less than I would have if I watched it at home. But despite all that I thought it was one of the better films I have seen all year round. Zooey Deschanel usually plays the pixy dream girl with a little edge, and in this film she is cast perfectly, put the events of the film plays on deconstructing the idea pixy dream girl. She is subtle in her performance, and she doesn't do anything wrong but not loving Tom, but that doesn't make her a bad person, and the film doesn't set off to make her so. I loved the film so much and I can go on and on talking about it, and I hope more of the members see it so we can talk more about it.   

[kaytee]

I liked this movie too and I actually had a lump in my throat in the last minutes when they meet for the last time at his favorite place. You could see how the tables have turned, the girl playing the character normally we have seen guys play and vice versa. The girl heartless and couldn't care less about anything but her, while the guy is the hopeless romantic. I loved that twist. Yes it is easily one of the best movies of 2009.

[safra23]

Finally saw this movie, and I loved the symbolism in the movie, they started of the movie saying its not a love story but story about love and its true. I don't want to go to much into character assination, but the character Summer was doing things more like a guy than actual female would, ruthless and with no emotion usually associated with the female characters.

The numbering of the days, made it much more easier to connect on what happened in the past or the present and provided a good flow to the movie, excellent movie.

My rating --> 4.0/5.0

[spoiler]
It was so neat to see, how the girls attitude towards relationship changed due to the guy (Tom) and how the guys attitude towards his work changed due to the girl(Summer), even though they did not end up together. But each gave the direction the other was missing in their life.
[/spoiler]

[shariqq]

I really liked the performances of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in this film. And although I did not find it as good as the others here did, it was nevertheless a fresh and interesting look at the "chick-flick", turned around for guys. Maybe they should (unofficially) remake other popular chick-flicks too reversing the guy/girl roles.

My rating --> 3.5 of 5

[safra23]

Maybe they should (unofficially) remake other popular chick-flicks too reversing the guy/girl roles.

I totally agree...