Relationships can be terrible things. Sure, they can lift you to enormous heights, make you feel as though the world belongs to you, that no matter what else goes wrong in life, you’ve got someone to share it with. But more often than not these extreme feelings of happiness and comfort simply serve as springboards. You find yourself being thrown higher and higher into a world which doesn’t really exist. Then comes the break up; a reminder that gravity does exist, and you find yourself crashing back to reality harder than ever before.
If you’ve ever been on the wrong end of a break up – meaning you’re the breakee not the breaker – then you know how painful it can be. Your mind is flooded with questions; How could this person suddenly change their mind? Weren’t we having fun? What did I do wrong? Is it me?
You spend the next few weeks (or months, or years) replaying events in your head. Trying to figure out where it all went wrong. It’s a painful and ultimately useless exercise, serving more as self torture than anything else. Yet we all do it (those of us who are sentimental saps anyway) and occasionally, it does help to put things in perspective.
500 DAYS OF SUMMER is a film that focuses on the deterioration of a relationship. It follows Tom (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an average twenty something guy as he attempts to piece together what went wrong in his relationship with Summer (Zooey Deschanel). He is a firm believer in true love, she isn’t. It sounds similar to a thousand other romantic comedies, but it isn’t.
The film is structured in a non linear way, presented in fragments much like the memories you might dig up after a relationship ends. Each scene is given some sort of context with a number appearing before it. For example, the film may start with the title (308) – 308 being the number of days Tom has known Summer - and him deeply depressed, only to suddenly flick back to (1) and present us the day he met Summer, excited for the future.
It may sound a little confusing, but director Mark Webb manages to keep an even flow between the time skipping and you never feel lost. Don’t get me wrong though, 500 DAYS isn’t all doom and gloom. It provides many profound and hilarious insights into the awkwardness of young love. The audience in my theatre, a mixture of ages, was laughing throughout the film. You’ll no doubt find yourself chuckling both from the insightful humour and the recognition of the situation. Who hasn’t felt terrible when a partner says they ‘just want to be friends’ or felt on top of the world after the first night you spend with them? These feelings have certainly been tackled time and again in film, yet 500 DAYS manages to present them in such a fresh and, most importantly, relatable way.
Although it is billed as a ‘romantic comedy’, I find it difficult to fully place it in this genre. Sure it’s a comedy about a romance, littered with dramatic elements. But the title ‘romantic comedy’ seems to bring images of Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson to mind, staring in a formulaic movie about two people who “soooo shouldn’t be together, but end up falling in love!”
500 DAYS is a romantic comedy in the same sense as ANNIE HALL or ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND.
Writers Michael H Weber and Scott Neustadter should also be commended for creating a narrative which is told entirely from a male perspective. It’s not often that you find a romantic comedy created for a male audience – although both guys and girls will enjoy the film – and I found it incredibly refreshing. This approach also lends a bit of mystery to the truth of the story, since we’re deprived of Summer’s perspective on things, it’s never fully revealed why she ends the relationship.
Neustadter has admitted in many interviews that almost everything in the movie actually happened to him in real life, which no doubt helps with the realism of the situations we’re presented with.
I’ve talked a lot about the themes and they way they’re presented, but if you’re just looking for an easy film to see this weekend 500 DAYS works perfectly as a nice piece of escapism. Although it may not be the best date movie.
The performances by the two leads are superb, particularly from Joseph Gordon-Levitt who plays the emotional Tom with just the right amount of hopeless admiration for Summer. His screen presence brought to mind memories of a young Heath Ledger, I’ve no doubt there are big things in the future for him.
It would have been quite easy for Zooey Deschanel to play Summer as the ‘villain’ of the film, instead she gives the character an emotional depth and mystery which you can’t help but fall for along with Tom.
500 DAYS OF SUMMER is not a typical romantic comedy. It offers a unique presentation and perspective on a story we’ve heard (and experienced) many times before, whilst retaining enough elements from the genre to keep the audience comfortable. It’s funny, charming and emotional story will keep you glued to the screen from beginning to end. It’s suitable for pretty much all ages (aside from a few sex jokes), so why not go and see it this weekend?
I found quite a personal connection to it. This one is for us sentimental saps. There’s plenty more fish in the sea, right?
Four Stars