500 Days of Summer

From the opening disclaimer to the narrator’s final comment, this is a unique film. Everything clicks from the music to the stellar performances, but most of all what makes it a masterpiece for me is the message–and you don’t really know what that is until the very end. This was a love story obviously written by a man who’d been been raked over the coals with his loss. It’s a wake up call for all the soul-maters and star crossed fate-mongers out there. It is so righteous. My first 10/10 in well over 2 years.

As time passed I kept asking myself, wait a minute, how could a romantic comedy EVER be anything more than an 80 or something? How could I rate it 100 and use words like ‘masterpiece’ for the first time in well over 2 years. Have I been one of those suckers born every minute? Risking double damage from such, I actually paid to go back and watch it again, and I gotta say, I stand by what I wrote.

Really looking forward to seeing this, I’ve heard universally good things…

The Paineful Truth is on the money. (Although a 10 is pushing it. 10 is perfection. There have only ever been two tens in the history of cinema – Casablanca and Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo). But i Days of Summer[/i] is one damn fine film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, stars as Tom, a greeting card copywriter smitten with a new employee named Summer (Zooey Deschanel). The movie begins the day that he is dumped. “All we do is argue,” says Summer. “That is bullshit!” argues Tom. From there it is out-of-sequence flashbacks to different days of the relationship as Tom tries to piece together just what went wrong – or right, as the case may be.

Summer was never interested in anything serious, a point she makes clear to Tom from the beginning. And yet, things progress, and Summer opens up to Tom in ways that seem to belie her commitment to non-commitment, including saying at one point those “six magic words” that indicate something far more than mere friendship is beginning to take place: I’ve never told anybody that before. It is a wonderful moment in a film that is filled with wonderful moments. i Days of Summer[/i], directed expertly by Marc Webb, is a movie that could easily have gone into romance-movie cliché. It never really does. It never seems forced, and it is never predictable. Best of all, it ends on the perfect note.

Both Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are outstanding in this film. I kept seeing Gordon-Levitt as Benjamin Braddock, with the same deer-in-headlights look, as he struggles through the circumstances of the movie every bit as bewildered as the hero of The Graduate. All that was missing was the Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack. No worries. Finally the unmistakable guitar intro of Bookends begins to play, followed by the haunting lyrics: Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph. Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you. We even have the final scene of Benjamin and Elaine on the bus, watched in a theater by Summer and Tom, a turning point, as it happens, in their relationship. Who can say why that particular scene makes Summer react as she does?

i Days of Summer[/i] is a love story despite what the narrator tells us at the start: “This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know up front, this is not a love story.” Perhaps what he meant is that it is not a romance. At least not a typical one. Touching, hopeful, and at times absolutely hilarious, it is much more than that. Perfect? Nope. Pretty damn good? Yep. Pretty damn good.

9/10

I watched this movie a few weeks back, and thorougly enjoyed it. Rainey, I think you’re spot-on with your review.

Hi,

The most important thing here is that Zooey and Emily are sisters.

I can’t watch Bones any more without going crazy.

Ed

Did any one notice how the female main actress, Summer-in the film, looks like Katie Perry? It slightly irritated me.