Movie Feature: (500) Days of Summer (2009)
By now almost everyone have already watched or at least heard of the movie that had so many raving about in the past year. The question becomes: what exactly is so good about it?
(500) Days of Summer is a nonlinear romantic comedy drama about a love story without a happy ending. Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a romantic at heart and therefore a valued writer for the greeting cards company he is working for, falls in love with Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) when she shows up as a new assistant to his boss. Soon, they become friends and over the next few months they grow closer, although Summer made it clear that she did not want a serious relationship.
As one of those "sleeper hits" the movie consists of only a few main characters, and even so, the ones that actually have noteworthy lines are Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. It is an absolute delight to watch them on screen - Gordon-Levitt with his puppy dog charm and Deschanel with 60's and her girl-next-door looks with wit to boot. The chemistry and the strong performances from the duo are part of the reason why this movie is a MUST WATCH. The other reason is the fantastic script.
Everything about this movie is original and refreshing. The scenes, when taken out of context, are things that have been done to death - boy meets girl, boy and girl breaks up, boy becomes emo - but the way it is told makes it seem new. Everything about this movie bristles with energy and emotion, there is not a single moment in this movie that feels forced or mundane. Take the nonlinear narrative for example. The movie plays out each of the 500 days that Tom has known Summer, although not in order. Memento (2000) may have ventured into those waters already, but (500) Days of Summer utilises it to juxtapose scenes. Throw in a omniscient narrator and you have sarcasm. The next minute you are laughing along, and later it will have you rolling your eyes or tear up. Furthermore, when you reflect on the movie at the end, you will find that there were moments that you could not understand, and that is because the movie is intentionally so, as it is shown from Tom's point of view and he does not understand either Summer's offbeat personality. It leaves you frustrated, but I find this interesting because it is also realistic and cautionary in a way: not all love stories have happy endings and in love, there is always one side that loses more.
So maybe you are not really in it for the story. However, there's always the cinematography (sorry, no nudity here guys). The director, Marc Webb, dabbles in music video and short films beside motion pictures, which explains the similarity of the scenes to music videos at times. Most of the scenes are pretty short, depicting only the crucial part of the day. Then there are silent scenes. It is pretty hard to describe, so watch this and some other romantic comedy to get a better idea.
THIS is the romantic comedy of 2009 so WATCH IT. I can't recommend it enough.