(no subject)
I largely enjoyed 500 Days of Summer; I thought it was at times extremely funny (the pretentious art flicks sendup culminating in the Ingmar Bergman mashup comes readily to mind), mostly sincere and very affecting.
At the same time, a number of little things kept me from experiencing unmitigated cathartic joy at the experience of watching it.
The main guy is a whiny little self important bitch (and indeed, as his sister says, a pussy). But then, while this was jarring in an age where we're expected to cheer for the downtrodden lovelorn leading person, I appreciated that the creators tried to portray how love brings out the best, the worst and- not often shown onscreen, at least for the protagonist- the pathetic in us. And this movie did purport to be real, and 'not a love story'. And to the movie's credit, that blind date he tried for did point out the stupidity of drama queening over a girl who technically did exactly what she said she'd do, and never lied to him. Again, nuance- good! So I was fine with this, right up until the ending, when they took a giant shit in nuance's face, 'literally'.
The ending felt like a betrayal of everything the movie had up to that point stood for, a patronizing saccharine false note in what had up until that point been an otherwise wonderfully discordant melody. Suddenly there's fate, and cosmic destiny, in a movie that was supposed to 'tell it like it is', from a character who just monologued before quitting his job (in a needlessly melodramatic fashion that again felt false in a movie otherwise stuffed with versimilitude) about how its the mass media's fault to shoehorning in all those myths about true love and how things are meant to be? It felt like a scene the producers demanded be put in before agreeing to release the film to more theaters, just so audiences could have their happy ending; like shoehorning in the Doolittle Raid in Micheal Bay's Pearl Harbor movie.
The guy's already gotten his life back on track, being the guy he wants to be because he has freed himself from his juvenile need to find 'the one'... only to find a new 'one'. Since apparently after all he just can't be happy unless he can be dopey again. Yay.
At the same time, a number of little things kept me from experiencing unmitigated cathartic joy at the experience of watching it.
The main guy is a whiny little self important bitch (and indeed, as his sister says, a pussy). But then, while this was jarring in an age where we're expected to cheer for the downtrodden lovelorn leading person, I appreciated that the creators tried to portray how love brings out the best, the worst and- not often shown onscreen, at least for the protagonist- the pathetic in us. And this movie did purport to be real, and 'not a love story'. And to the movie's credit, that blind date he tried for did point out the stupidity of drama queening over a girl who technically did exactly what she said she'd do, and never lied to him. Again, nuance- good! So I was fine with this, right up until the ending, when they took a giant shit in nuance's face, 'literally'.
The ending felt like a betrayal of everything the movie had up to that point stood for, a patronizing saccharine false note in what had up until that point been an otherwise wonderfully discordant melody. Suddenly there's fate, and cosmic destiny, in a movie that was supposed to 'tell it like it is', from a character who just monologued before quitting his job (in a needlessly melodramatic fashion that again felt false in a movie otherwise stuffed with versimilitude) about how its the mass media's fault to shoehorning in all those myths about true love and how things are meant to be? It felt like a scene the producers demanded be put in before agreeing to release the film to more theaters, just so audiences could have their happy ending; like shoehorning in the Doolittle Raid in Micheal Bay's Pearl Harbor movie.
The guy's already gotten his life back on track, being the guy he wants to be because he has freed himself from his juvenile need to find 'the one'... only to find a new 'one'. Since apparently after all he just can't be happy unless he can be dopey again. Yay.