Rating: 8.5/10

Director: Marc Webb
Writers: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber
Cast: Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER is the little indie that could (or should). Its tagline tells it straight: “this isn’t a love story, it’s a story about love.” But, more than that, it’s a story about growing up, with romance and comedy drinking in the booth right next to heartbreak and sadness in the great karaoke bar of life (had to do it). In short order, Tom (Gordon-Levitt) believes in love, Summer (Deschanel) does not, and it’s inevitable those two will clash, as Tom falls for Summer pretty much at first sight. Their relationship’s 500 days are charted, bouncing back and forth, non-linear, between important days.

In the hands of other writers, or another director, the “500 days” and their flippy-floppy could come off as gimmicky at worst, confusing at best. But this just illuminates one of the best aspects of (500) DAYS – it’s very inventive. Instead of feeding us a standard “yay, love!” montage when Tom finally gets his girl, the envelope is pushed right into an all-singing, all-dancing, cartoon-bird-included musical number set to the stylings of Hall & Oates. It’s a scene that manages to be totally rooted in fantasy, while still feeling achingly realistic and understandable. Few of us have danced across downtown Los Angeles in the middle of a choreographed dance routine to express our elation, but everyone knows how that feels. Later, a split screen is utilized for a pivotal sequence in Tom and Summer’s relationship. It depicts an evening party, as Tom imagines it will play out, and how it actually does play out. The dueling scenes diverge almost instantly, and it’s heart-breaking to watch the “this should be” as imagined in Tom’s head, right next to the “this is what is” happening in front of his very eyes. It’s a head trip for people who live in their own heads, sharp and wise and sad.

Deschanel has her hands full – she must charm Tom, she must charm us, and then she has to crush all of us while still being, you guessed it, charming. It’s simple enough to relate to Tom – everyone has had their heart broken by a bad break up – but it’s harder to marry that empathy with the same for Summer. It’s easy to forget that sometimes the heart-breaker can feel just as wretched as the heart-breakee. Summer thinks that by being upfront about her stance on love and relationships that she can somehow spare Tom pain; she doesn’t want to hurt him, but that does not keep him from getting hurt. Honesty is a great policy, but the human heart doesn’t spend much time with reason and words and thought-out stances on things, it tends to be a little more preoccupied with feelings and picnics and bad karaoke songs about love. But Deschanel is effervescent and sweet as ever, her Summer is just as messy and confused as anyone else, and no one can fault her for trying to hide all that behind an anti-love guise.

But the real draw of (500) DAYS OF SUMMER is Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom. Another actor could have made Tom a wimpy sadsack, a depressed windbag who could have brought down the entire production, winning script and clever direction and all. But Gordon-Levitt crafts a character that, even when he’s buying booze in a bathrobe and slippers, is still endlessly fun to watch.  You feel for this kid, and you want it all to work out for him, but you also know he’s got a lot of growing to do and he better well get at it, or he’s going to spend his life in that bathrobe, dreaming in “what if” montages.

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