Film review: (500) Days of Summer

Published on Thursday 3 September 2009 18:56

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER (12A) **** DIRECTED BY: MARC WEBB STARRING: JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT, ZOOEY DESCHANEL, MATTHEW GRAY GUBLER, GEOFFREY ARREND, CLARK GREGG

FEW genres have fallen into such a horrendous state of disrepair as the modern romantic comedy. Fuelled by predictable plot contrivances and dishonest observations about love, you can set your watch to the easily surmountable barriers their protagonists have to negotiate on their way to that specious and utterly phoney last-minute dash to the church/airport/train station to declare their true feelings. Most of these films – and all of these endings – appear to have been predicated on a complete misreading of The Graduate, to the point where it almost seems as if that final shot of Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross nervously glancing at each other after abandoning her wedding never actually existed and the characters actually did go off and live happily ever after.

What a surprise, then, to encounter a mainstream comedy about love and relationships that not only acknowledges this odd phenomenon, but actually works it into the DNA of its lovelorn protagonist. Early in (500) Days of Summer we're told that hopeless romantic Tom Haden's absolute belief in destiny is based on one such erroneous interpretation of The Graduate. What's more, this fundamental misunderstanding has unwittingly set him up for a lifetime of heartache – something that debut director Marc Webb smartly uses to show how easy it is for people to misread each other in their desperation to pursue a romantic ideal.

When Tom, who is played by the excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt, takes the girl he's convinced is "the one" to actually see The Graduate, he stares at the screen in blinkered awe while she bursts into tears, fully aware of what that ending signifies and how it relates to their own relationship. It's a beautiful moment that nails the way movies can sometimes penetrate a desire for escapism and get at the truth of a situation, even when you don't want them to.

That's something that (500) Days of Summer frequently manages to do. The film itself isn't quite the radical rewiring of the romcom it is being marketed as. Basically cut from the same Sundance-crocheted cloth as Juno and the collected works of Wes Anderson (with some liberal borrowings from Woody Allen), it comes replete with all the try-hard affectations of the whimsical American indie film – a third-person narrator, quirky animated title cards, an obligatory shout out to Belle and Sebastian – but manages to transcend its influences enough to appear fresh.

All those comforting stylistic flourishes, meanwhile, actually allow the film's more truthful observations on the nature of love to sneak up on you and catch you unawares. This is a film alive to the way in which finding someone can make you feel elated one minute and deflated the next, and it understands that for all the good times a couple may have together, feelings of love and devotion can't be faked or willed into existence if they aren't reciprocated – no matter how cute and right-for-each-other a couple may look.

That's the problem Tom has with Summer (Zooey Deschanel), the girl he has fallen head over heels for, the one he'll eventually take to that aforementioned screening of The Graduate. A failed architect working as a copywriter for a greetings cards company, Tom is floored the moment Summer takes a job as his boss's assistant. With her vintage boho looks, enormous eyes and enigmatic aura, his reaction is apparently quite common, but his unapologetic belief in the existence of soulmates ensures he's a goner, especially after discovering they share a mutual love of The Smiths.

Summer tells him upfront she doesn't really believe in love and isn't looking for a relationship. Nevertheless, they end up going out and having fun. After a little while they even begin to acquire a level of intimacy that goes beyond mere sex. Yet a barrier exists between them that Tom can't or won't see. When she breaks it off, he's a wreck. It's ruining nothing to reveal that this isn't a precursor to a tiresome game of will they/won't they. The film's title refers to the length of time Summer is in Tom's life and the story is told using a scrambled chronology that kicks off near the end and leaves us in little doubt that things aren't going to work out. Essentially, the film offers an anatomy of a failed relationship, jumping back and forth to pinpoint the highs and lows.

Webb, who started out making pop promos, demonstrates a mostly light touch in the comedy, but his real achievement is the way he captures the tiny moments that signal all is not right in the relationship. The unreturned glances, unindulged jokes, the broken handclasps that Tom fails to notice all build to a magnificent split-screen scene later on that contrasts the division between the way Tom wants things to happen and the way they actually do happen.

Despite all this, the film is not against the concept of love. It may sell itself a short with its tacked-on conclusion (which, viewed charitably, can be read as a testament to the way broken hearts repair themselves enough to make people want to try again), but it doesn't place great cosmic significance on finding the person you're meant to be with. Rather, it quietly celebrates the fact that love does exist and credits people with being smart enough to realise when it's the real thing and when it's just wishful thinking fuelled by too many bad movies (or misguided viewings of good ones).