500 Days Of Summer - Film Review
Zooey Deschanel Heats Up The Screen With This Smart Romantic Drama
Jul 1, 2009
Regardless of its resemblance to a romantic-comedy, as the film’s narrator informs us, from the on-set, this is not a love story. Full of laughter and heartache, (500) Days Of Summer is about how relationships tend to be romanticized, rather than observed rationally. This comfy self-delusion makes it painful to come to terms that, in reality, you may have been wrong.... about “the right one”.
Fall Back, Spring Forward
Tom (Gordon-Levitt) is a failed architect-turned-greeting card copywriter, who’s instantly smitten by his new co-worker, Summer (Deschanel). In the time frame of 500 days, we are privy to the ups and downs of their relationship, shown randomly in vignettes that jump both forward and back in time.
The smart script avoids becoming a formulaic chick-flick by inserting a guy, and his male perspective, in the leading role. Also, well-done is the intentional scripting of a non-linear storyline, versus manufactured later in the film’s editing process. This ensured that the flash forwards did not give any clues to the story’s actual final outcome.
Despite the standard, embarrassing karaoke scenes, the enjoyable 500 Days Of Summer contains unique extras that heightens the film’s humor. Specifically, a post-coital musical dance celebration and a melodramatic plot turn portrayed cinematically as French New Wave.
Scene At The Windy City's Gen Art Film Fest
500 Days Of Summer was originally reviewed at the opening night of the Gen Art film festival, hosted by the Chicago chapter of the arts and entertainment organization on June 23rd. Following the screening, at Chicago's venerable Music Box Theatre, the film’s director, Marc Webb, and his male lead actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, delivered an enlightening “Question & Answer” session.
A music-video director by trade, Marc Webb marks his feature-film directorial debut with 500 Days Of Summer. Webb recently completed the music video for Green Day’s newly released single “21 Guns”. Currently, he is re-teaming with scribes, Neustadter and Weber, to develop a big screen adaptation of Tim Tharp’s “The Spectacular Now” for Fox Searchlight.
Cast And Crew of 500 Days Of Summer
Starring Zooey Deschanel (Yes Man, Weeds, Failure to Launch), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra, Brick, Third Rock from the Sun), Clark Gregg (Iron Man 2, Iron Man ), Matthew Gray Gubler (CBS's "Criminal Minds"), Geoffrey Arend (TNT's "Trust Me"), Chloe Moritz (Bolt, ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money”), Minka Kelly (NBC's "Friday Night Lights"), and Rachel Boston (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, The Ex-List).
Directed by Marc Webb. Written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. Cinematography by Eric Steelberg. Editing by Alan Edward Bell. Original Music by Mychael Danna and Rob Simonsen. Produced by Mason Novick, Jessica Tuchinsky, Mark Waters and Steven J. Wolfe. Released by Fox Searchlight.
(Running Time: 95 min)
(Rated: PG-13, for sexual material and language.)
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