# 28 - Review: (500) Days of Summer

Wow. I've been meaning to get around to reviewing some more of the films I saw this summer. I knew it'd been a while since I'd done any articles proper, but I didn't think the last time was in July! That's pretty bad. Well, the make-up begins right here.

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Hindsight, as boring conversationalists often say, is a wonderful thing. Until now, they were right. (500) Days of Summer is an enjoyable distraction while it's on and just another movie when it's over. Nothing more, nothing less. It's the cinematic equivalent of the girl - or boy, we at Low Standards are a progressive people - you fancy passing by. The girl or boy you used to fancy a lot but have kinda gone off a bit, to precise.

If the trailer for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist boiled your kettle, you've probably already caught Summer. Tom (G.I. Joe's Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a young greeting card writer and wannabe architect meets the slight and subtle Summer* (Zooey Deschanel) at work and promptly falls for her. She's not into the whole love thing, though, much to Tom's chagrin. However, this doesn't stop her stringing him along for ages and dispelling potential irritation with flashes of her anime eyes.

The film, like its eponymous lady, does things her own way. The peaks and troughs of Tom and Summer's unclassified pairing are presented in a less than linear fashion. This out-of-sync approach proves to be mostly successful, as it still enables a somewhat conventional narrative flow and all of the beats that entails, while also granting it a freshness above, say, Music and Lyrics. When the laughs and/or pathos aren't/isn't coming, though, it starts to feel rather brittle.

Cynics will find the film an easy target. First and foremost, it's a "quirky" rom-com. How do we know this? Well, it's got a Belle and Sebastian reference, Zooey Deschanel, and twee graphics that look like album covers for the kind of bands on its soundtrack throughout. That said, where cynics will hear only contrivance and attempted earnestness when Tom swoons at Summer's shared Smiths fandom, most moviegoers will be too busy identifying or wishing they were identifying to care.

The film's greatest strength, aside from the impressive Gordon-Levitt, is in its presentation of "little moments." Witness Tom and Summer "playing house" in the IKEA showroom. While the best scene in the film, even this suffers from an underdeveloped script. Writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber leave their principals hanging, when it's time to deliver a killer line or wet-yourself laughing moment. There are flourishes. The post-coital cabaret (complete with killer Han Solo cameo) and flashbacks, even with the odd narrator, in particular, are handled beautifully by director Marc Webb, but we're too often left knowing how we should be feeling or when we should be laughing rather than actually getting on with either.

Watch it: if you, like, totally listen to bands that haven't even formed yet.
Don't watch it: if romantic comedies with "wise for their years" child characters make you want to slay all before you.
Ranking: 6/10 (clumsy but well meaning Ensign.)

* Ooh, Joyceian!

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Ian Pratt hopes you noticed how he reviewed (500) Days of Summer without making a (rubbish) title joke.