Film Review - (500) Days of Summer
Smart Post-modern Love Story Succeeds When it is Least Self-Aware
The film's emotional core rests soundly on an abundant and explicit borrowing of texts, be it The Graduate or The Smith's "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want", as much as it does the strength of its two magnetic leads. Occasionally, this reference heavy style (the whole thing implicitly recalls Annie Hall) goes a bit overboard -- c'mon, do we really need another spoof of Death's chess game from The Seventh Seal -- but always with a smile.
First time feature director Marc Webb plays on the double diegesis of musicals -- and music videos, where he cut his teeth -- and applies it to the idea of a doomed relationship. Fantasy and reality operate on two separate planes as do the out-of-sync lovers, Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel). Their alternating chemistry and non-chemistry becomes the solid foundation the ambitious structure dances around.
One too many fourth-wall breaks and a sadly predictable finale spoils some of the fun, but when playing to the strengths of Gordon Levitt and Deschanel, (500) Days of Summer manages to be both earnest and incredibly funny.
When Post-Modernism Goes Pop
Rather than letting the relationship run its course naturally, Webb and screenwriting team Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber zip back and forth through Tom's 500 days of infatuation.
Like a younger, more polished version of High Fidelity's heroic schlub Rob Gordon, Tom lives in a world colored by pop music and film. Although his Joy Division t-shirt and The Jesus and Mary Chain poster hardly explain Tom's hopeless romanticism, he's clearly susceptible to the neat little lies found in film reels and vinyl grooves.
When Summer starts working at Tom's office -- a greetings card office -- as the boss's (Clark Gregg) assistant, it's destiny, fate or whatever Tom simply insists it must be: something undeniable. He falls hard and she, left a bit frosty by her parents' divorce, follows cautiously.
On paper, the idea of (500) Days of Summer looks concept heavy. However, underneath the anything-goes structure (home movies, black and white faux documentary and a full blown musical number are all integrated), there's a lot of heart.
Pulled Off With a "Sentimental Heart"
The fact that Tom's hopeless romanticism stems from a childhood misinterpretation of the ending of The Graduate is no hollow allusion. It's a fine character detail made all the more powerful when, late in the relationship, he sees the film with Summer and realizes his error. These sort of lived-in character details combined with Gordon Levitt's charming display fuel the intimacy that gives credit to all the high-minded culture-mining.
Summer, despite being the title character, is the more underwritten of the two. Deschanel -- now an acclaimed indie songstress as well as an actress -- need only flash those beautiful blue eyes and Tom's love and despair is understood. She's at the top of her craft here, and kudos to the writing team for not overplaying the divorced-parents card.
Of Minor Characters and Love Myths
There's hardly a missed beat when both of the stars appear together. These long stretches and set pieces (the juxtaposition of an early and late relationship trip to IKEA) are what emerge as most memorable.
Tom's roommates (Geoffrey Arend and Matthew Gray Grubler) and younger sister (Chloe Moretz) work well enough as comedic support, but they aren't crafted with the care and believability of the principle characters. What becomes a little more troublesome is the almost inevitable thematic reveal, where Tom questions the whole idea of greeting cards and commercialized emotion, how it dooms us to lives of impossible expectations and ... anyway, you get the idea.
While it's not surprising that (500) Days of Summer eventually professes its intentions, it still comes as a bit of a let down. The film and its hero, Tom, are clear products of a media saturated generation, so it hardly bares repeating in the form of a boardroom breakdown at Tom's place of work.
True Love Still Conquers
For all its indie pizzazz and atypical structure, (500) Days of Summer ultimately plays by the Hollywood rules, which isn't necessarily such a bad thing. Webb and Neustadter/Weber manage to have a lot of fun with the romantic comedy, and ultimately, that's a few sights better than profundity.
RATING: 3.5 out of 5 stars
VERDICT: When the construct stays out of the way, (500) Days of Summer breathes fresh and funny. Sure, it's overly-ambitious to a fault, but there are far worse things you could say about a film.
(500) Days of Summer
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