Scott: Tonight I am reviewing (500) Days of Summer, an un-romantic comedy about a relationship that was built not to last.

 

Mike couldn’t make this review.

 

What did I think?

 

I guess the best way to describe this movie is pleasantly quirky. The movie stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the lovelorn Tom, searching for ‘The One’. As we learn in the opening narrative, he believes his life will only be complete, and happy, when he finds ‘The One’. He thinks he finds that in Zooey Deschanel’s character Summer.

 

When I think of Deschanel, I always think quirky. She has starred in plenty of mainstream Hollywood movies, but it’s how she comes across in them that give me that impression. She is a favorite of mine because I like the flavor she adds to roles. In this she has plenty of flavor and some of it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

 

Tom works for a greeting card company and the job appears like you would expect it too. It’s shown as being a slightly depressing place to work, which isn’t unexpected in a place where you work through your day one card at a time. It’s a drab workplace with dull colors and dark desks where the only fun thing is Tom’s friend McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend). McKenzie is the fun guy that people like to hang around, but that never gets the girl. He is more of a ‘bring him along, he’s funny’ type of guy. And he loves karaoke.

 

The workplace atmosphere changes when Summer arrives. Suddenly, there is a flower in the desert and you can almost see Tom’s ears perk up. Tom falls quickly for Summer and Summer floats along. Summer doesn’t believe in ‘The One’, or a one, or two, or anything like that. Love doesn’t exist for her, just relationships, but not even that really. Maybe the best description for her is ‘situations’. She has been in a several ‘situations’, but has had no boyfriends. It’s telling that we don’t see any friends of Summer in the movie. 

 

Tom’s other best friend is Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler). He’s been in a relationship for a long time, seemingly since time began. He’s in a really funny scene with Tom where they talk about employment. When the three guys get together it’s usually pretty funny. Advice from one guy who’s been dating (or married, that wasn’t clear) forever and from a guy that can’t get a date is bound to be accurate and helpful.

 

Gordon-Levitt plays his role well. Through him we can see the tide of the relationship. He wears his emotions on his face and you can’t help but feel for him in some of the things he goes through. All he wants to do is fall in love. Can a guy get a hand here?

 

This movie is completely seen through the eyes of Tom. All interactions with the other characters are through Tom. We only see Summer through his eyes and his impressions are our impressions. When he is happy, we are happy. There is one scene in which he is very happy and it’s my favorite of the movie. It’s the one with the really big smile. If I said any more I would give something away so I’ll stop there.

 

The movie was well cast. I already mentioned I like Deschanel, and Gordon-Levitt was great as well. Arend and Gubler are great as his friends and they seemed more real more than the friends we see in most movies.

 

Vance (Clark Greg) is Tom’s boss at the greeting card company. This guy seems to have read or written a few too many cards in his day. He always seems to play an office worker, or regular military guy or something. Usually something straight-laced. He’s like that in this movie, but I still felt sad for him. He seemed like a nice guy that lost his courage some time in the past.

 

This is director Marc Webb’s first feature length movie and it went well. There were several split screen shots and I liked them. Oftentimes those shots come across as cheesy, but in this they really worked well.

 

The script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber was a far cry from the one they wrote for Pink Panther 2. Where that movie was over the top, this was paced and smooth.

 

The soundtrack for the movie really stands out. Several of the songs have strong beats that carry the movie through scenes, while others help paint some lonely pain from Tom. One song is from Deschanel’s band She & Him.

 

How do I rate this?

 

I give this a 3.5 overall and a 3.5 for (un)romantic comedy. There are enough laugh out loud scenes to leave you talking about it later.