A Surprisingly Wonderful Movie!

Rating: 9/10 (29 January 2010)

500 Days of Summer – The title of the movie made me visualize it as a breezy love story set in some warm sunny beach on the West Coast. The opening scene by itself was a surprise as it showed a couple holding hands, smiling silently, with the lady wearing an engagement ring, sitting on a bench in a public park with an ambiance which was far from being anything we would call sunny! More like a shot from Woody Allen's earlier works. But in this case it was not New York, but LA. From there it began. And what a ride it was.
500 Days of Summer The story is narrated in a non-linear fashion, but less intrusive & easier to follow than a Nolan's movie. You easily get into the flow of narration in a couple of shots. It is so wonderfully intuitive. Now let's get into the movie.
The speaker in the background says that this is yet another 'Boy meets a girl' movie but not a love story! You would be intrigued because how else these candy floss movies could otherwise be made. But the director adds a punch inside the movie which would strike a chord with every man in the world, one time or the other in his life The movie begins, as said before, with a couple holding hands effusing warm feelings. The very next scene throws you into the utter chaos which the lead of the movie, Tom has created. Tom is an average Greeting card writer who aspires to become an architect (which he had studied in the college) and is highly dissatisfied with his mundane job. Then comes Summer, who doesn't literally blow away Tom's life like a hurricane, but enters his world slowly. Tom feels a particular attraction towards with Summer, the first time he sees her. But Summer doesn't. She has a peculiar way of looking at things, claiming that 'true love' is an adult version of Santa and is extremely commitment-phobic. Then begins a series of courtship between the lead characters, which captures every aspect of emotional turbulence that every pair in the world goes through.
The ups and downs that Tom goes through in the relationship and for a lesser extent what Summer goes through is shown at such a frantic pace that you literally laugh and feel sad at the same time. The script is so fast paced, that you don't have time to feel the hangover of the previous scene. The lead characters are also well developed and you wouldn't find them behaving in clichéd ways. Humour in this movie is so subtle that you actually laugh without understanding why you are laughing in the first place! The dialogues are crisp and insightful. Some words like 'I felt something for him, which I never was sure in your case' are just so plain yet powerful. One should watch the movie carefully to appreciate these jewels.
The background score and other songs in the movie perfectly blend with various moods portrayed. Marc Webb's music videos background shows up clearly in this movie. The song Tom dances to when he's happy is a treat to the eyes. But gives a 'been there-seen that' feeling.
The same scenes revisited in different moods show different meanings. And then again all this boils down to how our mind interprets things the way it wants to see it. The expectation / reality sequence is so original and the way it is shot is simply superb. It appears that one can never best the way Tom's disappointment is shown in the movie.
In the climax, the movie really appears to fall into the usual cliché tic ending. But Webb pulls it back into reality and avoids the mistake so many others have made before. And in the end the movie ends in Ivan Goncharov's 'Same Old Story' fashion, where the protogonists' views of the world become interchanged(which btw is perfectly the way things turn out in the real world). Webb has artfully wefted in so many different feelings that one can possibly go through in a relationship in this compact 90 minute delight. All in all, 500 days of Summer is definitely a 'not to be missed' movie.