(500) Days of Summer

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in (500) Days of Summer

The film (500) Days of Summer is proof that everybody borrows, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. It's nearly impossible to create something original from start to finish, what can be different is the approach. This film seems as if it plucked the object of desire out of Jules et Jim and blended it with the inventiveness of Annie Hall. The New Wave comparison is not out of left field as demonstrated later on.

This is a film that refuses to bow to conventions of narrative and structure from the start. The first image of the film is a title which appears to be a standard "this is fiction" disclaimer then it is flipped and rendered comical.

There is self-conscious narration, documentary-style cutaways (interviews, pictures and newsreel like footage). It is a film that honors, pokes fun at and references films of the past in a dream sequence parodying the French New Wave and Bergman in two different skits, one Bergman homage was similar to a Woody Allen gag in Love and Death and the latter the best Seventh Seal parody I've seen. These gags are completely justified as Levitt's character has a delusional fantasy while watching an arcane foreign film.

What's most interesting in the film is that it refuses to go in chronological order and pretty much never needs to. This frees the film to have very interesting moments like a "Why I Love Summer" and "Why I Hate Summer" montage which have nearly identical footage. The stream of consciousness, memory-like edit also allowed the relationship to be reviewed both in an idealized version and how it really happened.

Though it was good to finally have some understanding of how Summer thinks at the end it still felt like the kind of movie that would've been better served by an open ending. Not that the end was bad, perhaps just too tidy. That doesn't detract from the whole. Levitt reasserts himself as the preeminent figure of independent cinema. Deschanel plays her part probably as well as any in her generation can filling in the blanks in her character's thought process which are inherent based upon the film's perspective.

Most pleasing and notably of all Mark Webb is a director to be reckoned with because he injected life and creativity into a rather stagnant genre and despite not masquerading the inevitability of the relationship failing he made the ride quite fun.

8/10

For more info: (500) Days of Summer is still playing this weekend amidst a barrage of new releases, for tickets and showtimes check Fandango. For plot information visit their official site. If you're looking for an action film check out my friend Michael DePalma's review of G.I. Joe.