Now I am a movie critic too, because I can do pretty much whatever I want

And today I wish to discuss the movie 500 Days of Summer.


I do realize it's already been reviewed by both Handsome Gentlemen and cool Jet-setters. But I want to chime in too, dangit. Because it was wonderful.

Like the awesome-voiced narrator tells us in the very beginning, "This is not a love story. This is a story about love." It follows Tom, played by the surprisingly n adorable and charming Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Tom is a 20-something young pup who studied architecture in college but now has a job creating copy for greeting cards. He believes in destiny, fate, soaking it up in a hot tub with his soul mate, all of it. He meets new receptionist Summer (GH's GF Zooey Deschanel) and, on the basis of her attractiveness and their similar taste in music, decides that she's The One. Unfortunately, although she likes Tom, Summer does not actually believe in love, or marriage, or soul mates. Tom is so infatuated with her, however, that he . . . chooses to kind of ignore this. Until she breaks up with him and he falls completely apart and is determined to win her back.

First off, I would like to say kudos to a movie that actually casts two people in their 20s as romantic partners, with the kinds of jobs and friends that people that age would actually have. This instead of pairing 29-year-old Zooey Deschanel with, oh, I dunno, 47-year-old Jim Carrey and then pretending like the 20-year age difference doesn't even exist. Way to suck, Hollywood.

This movie was pretty much perfect, I thought. It was funny and sad and real--oh my, was it ever real. In fact, there was one point in the movie where Tom stands up and makes an impassioned speech in front of his coworkers about three-fourths of the way in. That was the first time I ever thought, "Um, but would a person really DO that?" That's how I know that I was watching something that was 500 times better than your (sub)average recent romantic comedy. Because those movies expect you to suspend your disbelief before you even leave your dang house. In any other romantic comedy the impassioned speech would have come from Matthew McConaughy to an entire ballroom of people, during a wedding, and maybe he would be naked and holding a pillow over his bits, and then at the end of the speech everyone would be crying and clapping and curing cancer and adopting tiny spicy exotic babies left and right. In this movie there was none of that mess.

The filmmakers did some really clever things that I think worked extremely well. The narrative isn't linear but instead flips around, with title cards letting you know which day of the 500 Days you're on. It makes sense, though, and leads you through the story in a way that is really quite moving. And it also made me want to watch it again to see which little moments and call-backs I could catch better the second time around. One great visual involved a split-screen device that shows Tom's expectations of a reconciliation with Summer on the left and what actually happens on the right. Heartbreaking, but also very funny.

This movie also contains the most sublime moment I've seen on film all year, which occurs as Tom walks through LA after spending the night with Summer. I won't describe it to you, but I was giddy with delight. What happens is not based in reality at all, but the feeling it portrays most definitely is. And the soundtrack is great.

There were other scenes, however, that resonated in a different, slightly painful way. Because I have done some of the things Tom does here. I have been in relationships where I saw every insignificant little thing as further evidence that this guy and I were MFEO. I have been unwilling to recognize red flags. I was unwilling to actually listen to the words this person was saying and to realize that perhaps they did not bode well for our future together. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was just setting myself up to be heartbroken.

A few days after seeing the movie, GH and I listened to a podcast featuring one of the film's two writers. He talked about how in test screenings, the people who loved this movie the most were men. And how men are, unfortunately, the least likely to be the ones running out to tell their guy friends that they have GOT to check out this new romantic comedy. Except GH did because he's secure (and hot) like that.

It's true, though. He laughed even harder than I did and there were moments during Tom's angst and dejection and misery where GH just nodded his head and said, "Yep." And then I'd lean over and stroke his arm and whisper, "I'm really, really sorry. Remember how I married you in the end, though?"

Posted in: dating or not so much,reviews