(500) Days of Summer, director Marc Webb’s first feature-length film, is a charming anti-romantic comedy with stellar performances from today’s most underrated actors. The film is making its rounds on the film festival circuit and drawing considerable praise from audiences and critics alike.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom, a man looking for a storybook romance and his soulmate. The beautiful Zooey Deschanel plays his love interest, Summer, and his complete opposite, a girl who doesn’t believe in love.
No Romantic Comedy Here
With such a premise, one would expect a giant cliche wrapped up in gooey romance and lovesick dialogue. Fortunately, audiences won’t find that here. Webb does a fantastic job at making the audience fall in love with the leads just as they fall in love. Conversations had between Tom and Summer are extremely familiar and true to life. Their fights are heartbreaking and their sweet exchanges are smile-inducing because watchers have become so emotionally invested in them.
It is also shockingly funny. From the first second of the movie, a hilarious author’s note, audiences will be laughing throughout the film until the final, perfect last line. (500) Days of Summer can also be very dark at times, which is appropriate for showcasing a true-to-life romance.
Webb's Directing Shines
The story is not linear, and it works for the film. Webb moves from random days of Tom and Summer’s romance to show the audience the conflicting moods, the start of the relationship, the rocky parts, the bliss of love, and the agony of when it falls apart.
Webb also uses some perfect devices to show the characters’ feelings, like a split-screen sequence showing on one side what Tom is actually experiencing and on another what he wishes was happening in reality. The shots perfectly sum up Tom and how he works, and audiences will fall in love and root for him because of it.
Gordon-Levitt Brings Tom to Life
Actors Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel have acted along side one another before, in 2001’s Manic, and it shows. The two have an easy repartee and act and look as a couple in real life would, which is refreshing to see on the big screen. Gordon-Levitt in particular amazes, as he has before in previous works Brick and Mysterious Skin.
The most surprising aspect about (500) Days of Summer is that it is truly not a romantic comedy, despite having all the elements to be such on the surface. As the narrator says at the beginning of the film, “This is not a love story, it's a story about love.” It’s a story about life and the people who pass in and out of it, and it is almost impossible to not fall in love with the characters and see traits of one’s self in them. Although it is not a romantic comedy, it is what romantic comedies should aspire to be - a reflection of real life.
(500) Days of Summer will be released by Fox Searchlight Pictures on July 17, 2009.
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