Think Romeo and Juliet meets Christopher Nolan's Memento

Rating: 8/10 (9 July 2014)

Love! In one stances can be the most beautiful of human experiences that change a life, and bring a person whole oceans full of happiness. But at the same time, it can make people go their entire life searching for it, risking heart ache, pain and rejection and yet still never really finding it in the end. Then when you do find it, it makes you do crazy and stupid things, and when it comes to February the 14th, you're left with an empty wallet and remortgaged house just so you can put a smile on her face and a ring on it. So why go through all of it? Why, I'll tell you why, because its love, it's that unbelievable, confusing yet exiting sensation that no amount of words in the entire world could ever have a hope for defining. While Hollywood sucks at sequels and remakes, it seems these three godfathers of romantic films in the shape of When Harry met Sally, The Note Book and Titanic, has shown that Hollywood has had better success in the area of love and I feel that with release of Marc Webb's sensational depute 500 days of Summer is certainly a film that on merits, as time goes by will certainly join the before mention ranks.
Don't you find the same old boy meet girl story rather boring and contrived? And don't you absolutely hate the word romance films? First of all the title is not at all guy friendly, and certainly not a word you want to be throwing around in the guys changing rooms. But 500 Days of Summer is as far removed from a conventional and predictable romance film, as Saw is from a Disney family film. Why? Well when you think Romance films you think about fairy tales and happily ever after's, but in 500 Days of Summer it doesn't try to delude its audience, instead its franc, realistic and extremely relatable. Then secondly it's not just your standard boy meets girl, then they fall madly in love and finally get married in that same order time and time again, instead what writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (Fault in our Stars) did so ingeniously was rip up the boring old blue print, and put it back together in a fresh new and wacky way; think Romeo and Juliet meets Christopher Nolan's Memento.
Meet Tom (Gordon-Levitt), an aspiring architect stuck in a dead end job working for a card greeting company, that does nothing but inspire boredom from him. He's one of life's go- getters, internal optimist and a real glass half full type of guy. Oh and in a interesting roles reversal, he is absolutely obsessed with the notion of true love and soul mates, while on other hand we have the fresh faced, definition of cute secretary Summer (Zoe Deschanel) who doesn't buy the whole love thing, and would rather remain single than allowing it to consume her life. I can guess what you're thinking; you couldn't get any more diametrically opposed than if you brought chalk and cheese or day and night together. However sparks do fly between them and through a nonlinear sequence of events we jump, back and forth to various points of their relationships; from the highs to the lows, funny to the serious and the comedy to the drama as their differences make their relationship very difficult.
If you wanted me to list all the superlatives I have for 500 days of Summer for you, you would be spend days reading my review, after I had spent weeks writing it because the truth it, I loved the film from beginning to end. First the whole concept of the nonlinear telling of the story was both imaginative and interesting and certainly stands out above most of today's romance films with its inspired innovation. The script was phenomenal all the way through, provided a barrel of laughs whilst also injecting a sense of depth to the film that really made you pause and rethink things, and the fact the story was based on actually real world relationship experiences that the writers had, was probably why the film was able to resonate so deeply with its audiences upon release. If you were already a fan of the TV show New Girl staring Zoe Deschanel and you thought that she was really funny in the show, then watching her in this will send you to the hospital for literally bursting out laughing. But that is no disservice to my man Levitt, who offers a light hearted relief to his stone cold, lifeless performances in the Dark Knight Rises and Looper.
I was also particular impressed with Marc Webb's directing, especially seeing that this was his debut film, which I would rank up there with the likes of Mendes with American Beauty and Tarantino with Resiviour Dogs in terms of best depute film exploits. All in all, I would highly recommended film to all manly men, pessimists or horror fans, because it a lot more than just a romance film, it's a film about real life that I feel we can all learn a great deal from.