Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Film Review: 500 Days of Summer

500 Days of Summer stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom, who works in an office where he writes greeting cards. Although he has been working there for four years, he finds his job dull, and yearns to be an architect. One day during a meeting he is introduced to Summer (Zooey Deschanel), his boss’s new assistant. He is taken aback by her beauty and immediately starts trying to find a way to get to know her. However, she isn’t interested in romance, and she doesn’t believe in love…

WARNING: This is not a love story; it’s a story about love.

500 Days doesn’t run in a chronological order. Instead, we zip from one day to the next in a rather haphazard fashion, whilst all the time explaining Tom and Summer’s relationship. After ten minutes I had no idea what day we were on (I’m no good with numbers), but I was immersed into a love story that is, by far, light-years better than most rom-coms. Nerdy Tom and super-slick Summer seem like characters that only appear in films, but as the characters unravel, I found myself thinking of people who are similar to them. In fact, on some level, I can identify with both characters (I’m not sure what this says about me, but anyway...).

I could go on and on about how creative the film is, and how the soundtrack is perfect, and how Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel play their parts brilliantly… I could go on and on about everything. But I won’t, because it may spoil it for you. So go and see it.

Is it too early to start talking about Oscar nominations?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I was totally expecting 500 Days of Summer to be a let down as I was told to watch it by a friend whose into stuff like The Notebook, but it surprised me.
It was fresh, not predictable like all other love films ever made.
& re: your Fish Tank review - I've not seen it yet, but being from the bin that is Essex also, I'm intrigued to see what they've done with the idea... nice blog by the way.