“This is not a love story; this is a story about love”
Yesterday Cara and I picked up some screening passes and hit up the theatre with Courtney and Tom to see (500) Days of Summer, we’d been looking forward to it ever since we’d seen the previews a few months back. Here’s a few of my thoughts…
(500) Days of Summer is not a romantic comedy. (there were however, many times during the film where I would have said this is a love story between Zooey Deschanel and the camera) The story starts by introducing us to the two main players in this tale; Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel). Tom is a young and idealistic twenty-something who spends his days writing greeting card prose (ironic?) and his nights as an unabashed romantic, with a capital “R.” Summer is his Juliet. She is an enigma that is impossible to pin down, really though, she’s just the quirkinessthat is Zooey Deschanel, no new ground but tried and true. Tom has convinced himself that Summer is the girl of his dreams, maybe even more so, and Summer has told Tom that she’s not interested in anything serious… Tom and Summer are equal parts of a relationship that is destined to fail. Two souls that are perfectly in-sync across several levels but missing that thread that brings it all together. They are the kind of “love” that hurts the most.
I don’t want to say too much as to ruin the film for you so I’ll just say it’s probably the best “Anti-Romantic Comedy” that you’ll see all year. The script is well written and the soundtrack is extremely well tuned. (giving as much significance to Morrisey as it does to Hall and Oates) Gordon-Levitt is fantastic as the bright eyed, star-struck lover who encounters every emotion from love to fear with just the right amount of transparency, taking you along for the emotional rollercoaster. Zooey Deschanel, though not as good as her performance in All the Real Girls, is a terrific counterpart to Levitt and really makes their relationship the kind you want to cheer for.. even though you know it will crash sooner or later.
What really makes 500 Days pop is the director’s (Marc Webb) knowledge of relationships and the tiny quirks that make them work, or in this case, destine them to failure. He presents the film in snapshots, memories, not bound together by time in a linear story but rather in context, much like how we would naturally remember our own past experiences: each memory linked intrinsically to another leading to a story that grows as each new memory is reflected upon. The film will likely be embraced as Gen Y’s take on When Harry Met Sally and it is (though thankfully without the pop-culture “wit(?)” and indie references that drove Juno into the ground), with perfectly appointed showrooms from Anthropologie and throwbacks to pre-Godard New Wave French films, but if you scratch away the kitschy veneer and put Zooey’s 60’s throwback wardrobe back on it’s hanger you get a story about love. It reminds you, sometimes shamelessly, of the pain that comes along with real relationships, the hurt that can come along with being honest with both yourself and the one you want to be with.
It’s a tale about the love that isn’t yours but was so connected to who you are that it will forever live on the self with the rest of your memories, first dates, and heartbreaks.
