(500) Days of Summer

“There’s no such thing as love. It’s a fantasy.”

Day 1. Along came Summer.

The narrator is right – this is a story of boy meets girl but it is on no level a love story.

Something happened to Summer Finn, a long time ago that made her lose all faith in love and made it very difficult for her to bare her emotions and allow herself to be vulnerable with someone. Slowly Tom breaks down these barriers and exposes some of her feelings, her secrets, her fears. And then as soon as the box is opened, it’s closed again as she feels him falling for her.
Not wanting to put a label on their friendship-relationship, she ends it with him over pancakes – something we see right at the beginning of the film so they’re over before they’ve even begun and the latter half of the film shows him trying to pick up the pieces of his broken heart and failed life as an architect turned greetings card writer.

If this were in chronological order it would seem like the perfect boy meets girl but the back and forth timey-wimey stuff gives the audience a different view of their relationship as all the things that signal their demise were shown before they had really begun as a couple.

The audience develops a connection to Summer, her vulnerability and emotional fragility. Deschanel has a wonderful way with facial expressions and they speak so much louder than words. This film would be brilliant if only Gordon-Levitt created that same level of connection. He’s pretty one-dimensional for all the time-travel he seems to be doing lately and it’s not until Summer truly screws him over and he’s in the deepest pit of depression that one finally has some form of connection to him. But then he starts to pick himself back up again and that connection is lost.

Gordon-Levitt plays a good character though he is very one-dimensional and seems to have a permanent stoned/drunk/confused expression, while Deschanel is her usual quirky self and without her I don’t think this film would have worked so well. Chloe Grace-Moretz is worryingly mature much like she was in Kick-Ass though thankfully there were no machetes or murders-most-brutal this time. She is Tom’s younger sister and acts as his mentor getting him through the break-ups and make-ups with the help of school football and vodka.

This is a good rainy-day film with friends but it’s nothing special. It tries to break boundaries but ends up a bit confusing and lost – especially with the just-scored-with-my-girl dance in the park. Totally wrong that bit.

Day 500. Along came Autumn.