Movie review: 500 Days of Summer

Thursday, August 20, 2009

500 Days of Summer, now playing at Liberty Hall, is a romantic comedy about a young guy, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who meets Summer, the girl of his dreams (Zooey Deschanel) at the greeting card company when he works. The movie, played out of sequence, tells the story of how Tom woos Summer, who claims not to believe in traditional relationships, their eventual breakup and his eventual recovery.

The script is surprisingly clever, given that it comes from the writers of The Pink Panther 2. And while it is a movie with a thoughtful, realistic look at relationships, there are moments where the movie tries too hard. In an attempt to appeal to young, hip twentysomethings, writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber take every opportunity to insert cool pop-culture references that aren’t really necessary to make the story work. Summer is a pretty girl with a cute, engaging personality. She wouldn’t need to like The Smiths or read J.D. Salinger in order to be attractive to Tom. Likewise, Tom is a young, likeable guy who’s certainly good looking and friendly enough. Those scenes where he sings Karaoke to the Pixies? Don’t need ’em. It’s entirely possible to make this movie a good, solid story about a guy and a girl and have it interest the young folks without making it all about the hipsters.

Even though 500 Days of Summer borders on annoyingly “cool,” the insights it gives into relationships and the feelings they stir up are touching and true. Deschanel is enchanting as the heartbreaker Summer, and Gordon-Levitt is sympathetic and easy to identify with as the romantic Tom. Even the supporting performances, especially from Geoffrey Arend as Tom’s best friend, are solid and funny. Those pop-culture references may be phony, but the performances and emotions aren’t.

3 out of 4 stars

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