(500) Days of Summer
★ ★★★★
I can understand how some might view this movie as a little too cute or kitschy, but I think (500) Days of Summer perfectly encapsulates how twenty-somethings view and contextualize romance. Although I'm not completely like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character Tom, I certainly grew up as a hopeless romantic like him. I would absolutely adore working for a Hallmark-type of company. I'm pretty sure I visualized scenarios and romance through the lens of what pop culture told me about how love was supposed to look and feel.
I also appreciate that director Marc Webb is brave enough to hit all the beats of a relationship that ends up not working. There are no bad guys in this story and I really appreciate that about this movie. Sometimes things end up not working. And not because one person in the relationship did something intentionally to hurt the other person. We are all on our separate paths. Sometimes we intersect and other times we merge.
Zooey Deschanel is cast perfectly as the girl who is mysterious, beautiful and unattainable. I can imagine that we all have been infatuated with a person even when at their core, don't hold the same beliefs as ourselves. All at once you see how Tom and Summer click but also how they were doomed from the start. The innovativeness of the back-and-forth storytelling is perfect. Moments and dialogue are contextualized with a whole new meaning and despite being thrown into various timelines of this relationship, you are able to keep up and follow. We aren't so much bought into what is going to happen between this couple but by the how of their demise.
This paired with an amazing soundtrack, hilarious scenes and immaculate editing, makes (500) Days of Summer a movie that I could watch over and over again.
