Today I fell victim to the ol’ Sundance switcheroo. I had planned on seeing Shrink starring Kevin Spacey, but that film was bumped from the press screening rotation and replaced with another showing of Moon, so I waited around until the big, much-hyped screening of 500 Days of Summer later that night.
500 Days of Summer
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel star in this quirky story about boy meets girl, boy becomes infatuated, but girl wants to be “just friends.” Being friends with the girl of your dreams is possibly the most dreaded thing that could happen to a single man.
Gordon-Levitt plays Tom, a sappy young guy who believes in fate and “the one.” He writes and designs greeting cards for a living, but secretly wants to be an architect.
Deschanel plays Summer. She’s perfect for this role; she seems cute and quirky enough to be one of those girls that could make a guy fall madly in love with her without really realizing it.
The movie jumps around in the chronology with a little counter that pops up every so often to tell us what day within the 500 days it is. At first we see them sitting on a park bench and she’s got a ring on, they’re holding hands, and everything looks like it worked out perfectly. Cut to another scene where Tom is in the kitchen breaking plates distraught that him and Summer have broken up.
So the movie plays out like this. Skipping back and forth in time showing us the good, the bad, and the terrible in Tom and Summer’s relationship. It’s an interesting way to tell a story. Little intricacies are revealed about scenes we’ve already seen part of, but they are given a different context.
There’s even a part where director Marc Webb shows us a split screen of Tom’s expectations and his harsh reality. After not seeing Summer for a while they accidentally meet on a train and Summer invites Tom to a party she’s having. As Tom is walking up to the door the screen splits. On the expectations side we see Tom and Summer having a great conversation. They’re laughing and touching, and then they start kissing. On the reality side, something much different is happening. Summer is ignoring Tom and is flirting with other guys.
500 Days of Summer is as real as a movie can get to the actual truth of dating. The ups, the downs, and the games that people play without making their true feelings known. It’s a cute, sweet film and it should do well in theatrical release.
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