Tuesday, August 11, 2009

All About the Girl

You have to see (500) Days of Summer.

It’s just that simple. You have to see this amazing film for three simple reasons: Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Zooey Deschanel. And it’s a story about love, and it rocks.

Tom (Gordon-Levitt) is a greeting-card writer and a hopeless romantic.

He’s caught completely off-guard when he meets Summer (Deschanel), an assistant at his company with whom he’s fallen completely in love, and even more so when she dumps him.

Director Marc Webb takes us on a beautifully soundtracked journey – the music includes, among others, the Smiths (a Tom and Summer fave) and Carla Bruni. He approaches this task with a hipster’s touch, which is truly effective given the jump-through-time narrative of the film.

One moment we see what was going on in the couple’s relationship at Day 488, the next we see them meet on Day 1, and so on and so forth. Surprisingly, this doesn’t make (500) Days of Summer confusing at all – it makes it real.

People never remember their relationships they way they should, with logic. We don’t have a rearview mirror in which to look back at what we did, and certainly, we don’t have a tape recorder on which to push Play to hear what we said.

We only have ourselves and how we felt.

As Tom reflects back on his 500 days with Summer, he tries to figure out where their love affair went sour, and in so doing, he rediscovers his true passions.

We should all be so lucky, huh.

Go catch (500) Days of Summer. It’s truly the most original film I’ve seen all year.

My Rating ****

Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures.

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