If you take the title literally, “500 Days of Summer” actually rounds up to roughly a year and half of constant sunny days, consistently tan skin and alas, no school. I suppose we would have to account for Georgia weather throwing us some blistering hot days, followed with peeling skin and, for the unlucky many, the everlasting job hunt. For me personally, the summer is keen with my guilty pleasures, but just because I like The Devil Wears Prada and Ashlee Simpson, summer is only granted a couple months for a reason.
With “500 Days of Summer,” we are presented a similar situation. Instead of teeny pop music and B-movies galore, we have Summer, a young woman who believes in love as much as the belief that there is a Santa Claus.
The film starts with a typed prequel that states everything found in the movie is completely fiction. After some snooping around on my part, I found out that director Marc Webb had, in fact, based Summer off of a girl he used to know. Although this may sound trivial now, the film relies heavily on love as it’s main foundation. Knowing that everything I was seeing possibly happened to the director or one of the writers made this film that much more real and enjoyable.
The movie follows the disheartening premise of a lover and his quest to obtain the unobtainable– someone who doesn’t believe in true love.
Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt falls head over heals for his new co-worker Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel. The story is seldom interrupted by a Morgan Freeman sound-alike who narrates the two as they flash forward and backward on random intervals of different days spent together. For example, the film would jump from day 205 to day 17 to day 399.
The jumpy plot might be extremely confusing in any other movie, there couldn’t have been a better way to film “500 Days.” As we see Tom first growing found of our vixen Summer, the film would jump ahead a few hundred days towards the middle of the budding relationship to show him in absolute misery.
There was a constant juxtaposition throughout the movie that made it truly saddening and realistically humorous at the same time. Usually the concept of love as the main focus in a film comes off as cliché or is only partially developed, but it only took a few minutes before I was fully engulfed for the remaining hour and a half.
Zooey’s unprecedented beauty and Joseph’s pristine acting made this easily one of the best on-screen chemistries I’ve seen all year.
A week after viewing the flick, I still feel this longing that a film of this genre has never captured before. Zooey might most of the credit for this longing sensation, but there is more to this film than pearly, blue eyes.
Featuring artists such as Regina Spektor, Belle & Sebastian, The Smiths, Feist, the soundtrack to this film seems to be more fitting as the opening bands at a She & Him show; however, the songs helped aide the film’s message.
Likewise, director Mark Webb provided his own unique image which included either an impromptu musical-inspired dance number or a split screen showing the same scene except only one was shown in reality while the other was viewed with Tom’s unrealistic expectations. Once again, there is this constant comparison and contrast that brought out some of the finest filmmaking this year.
Despite it’s tell-tale tagline, I encourage anyone to look for this film in limited release on July 17. I give “500 Days of Summer” a ten out of ten.
Related articles:
- Another Look – ‘(500) Days of Summer’: Love a Little Differently
- The Two (Currently) Most Fascinating Movies to Watch This Summer
- ‘Rachel Getting Married’: A Candid Few Days with the Family
- ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’: The Action Popcorn Film to Beat for the Summer?
- I Love You, Man Well Loved