(500) Days of Summer (2009)

People don’t realize this, but loneliness is underrated.

— Tom

(500) Days of Summer is director Marc Webb’s first long length feature film dealing with not just “any another love story, but a story about love.” Missing out on the special screening for this movie two earlier, I eagerly anticipated watching this.

Critics have been praising this movie since Sundance this year. It has a Metacritic score of 76 and being currently #115 of the Top 250 of All Time on IMDb list. Does it deserve to have such high praise? Yes, for the most part.

Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is a hapless greeting card writer that is taken with his new co-worker, Summer (Zooey Deschanel). He is the ultimate hopeless romantic that completely falls hard for Summer. Summer cannot reciprocate Tom’s feelings. She wants to keep him at a distance. Tom believe in love and Summer thinks that the word is bullshit.

Summer only wants to be “friends” with Tom, but Tom wants more than that. He wants Summer to be “his girlfriend”, “the one”, “his everything”, “his love.” Summer cannot give him that. She continually breaks his heart every chance that she gets.

The story is told as a broken narrative. You start with the end of the relationship and flash back to them meeting for the first time and everything in between. Writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber shows the audience the ups and downs, the joyous moments and the painful ones as well. This movie does not shy away from the tough parts that make you want to turn away from the screen.

There is one perfect sequence that is so true, so real that I will break your heart. Watch out for it.

Anybody that has been in a relationship will relate greatly to this movie. Everybody knows what it is like to be attracted to a person, waiting to see if they feel the same way. When is the best time to say “I love you”? How long does it take to fully commit to that person? What happens with you fall out of love? Do you want to get back with them? What if the feelings changed over time? There are endless questions that have to be asked in a relationship.

Let’s say that this movie is not perfect. The narration by Richard McGonagle bothers me greatly. We don’t need a narrator telling us the life story of Tom and Summer. It’s unnecessary. The beginning sequences were a little rocky to start, borderline boring.

Whenever Tom has a problem with Summer, he goes to seek the advice of his tween sister, Rachel (Chloe Moretz), who has all the answers for him.  Say what? What does a thirteen year old girl know about an adult relationship. No kid could be that astute.

There are some vignettes that took me out of the film. Cannot discuss them without spoiling the movie.

Judgment: Do not watch this movie with your significant other.

Rating: ****1/2