Not A Love Story But A Story About Love? Yeah, Whatever!

Rating: Null/10 (16 August 2015)

A hard pill to swallow but people who are friend-zoned actually deserve to be friend-zoned! The world is full of forever-alone guys who walk around with their "nice guys" tags to keep reminding themselves that they're the nicest people out there and it's an obligation for any girl they have a borderline-psychotic crush on to love them back as a failure to reciprocate the same feelings instantly results in her being termed a "bitch".
The term "friend-zone" itself implies that the other person's feelings doesn't matter. If a guy or girl has a huge crush on someone, then that someone is expected to give them a chance even if they don't feel a thing for the former & might not even be interested in the first place. Expecting the other person to like you when you don't even have anything unique to offer is both lame & stupid but most believe in this half-assed philosophy of love and when it fails to work out, they blame that crush for ruining their lives.
(500) Days of Summer makes it very clear in its opening note that all the author intends to do here is to take out the frustration of his failed relationship for a total of 95 minutes. And it works because people with broken hearts are wired to instantly latch on to anything that reminds them of their very own predicament and instead of observing the shortcomings of the protagonist, keep looking for the faults in the one who broke the heart. The whole story is a one-sided perspective of love, expectations & relationship dynamics.
Chronicling the events in a non-linear fashion, (500) Days of Summer tells the story of Tom Hansen, a trained architect working as a greetings card writer, who's recounting the broken memories of his failed relationship with Summer Finn, the girl of his dreams who dumps him one day in an abrupt manner. The plot keeps jumping from one random day to another and shows the progression of their relationship as well as the subsequent depression that Tom undergoes after the break-up, and concludes with him moving on to a better future.
Directed by Marc Webb in what is his feature film debut, the way (500) Days of Summer is narrated is far more refreshing than its content. The film is an honest depiction of the kind of thoughts that surface in mind when one is getting into a relationship or recovering from a bad break-up but it's the movie's clever structure, bright colour palette, hilarious moments, dynamic editing, splendid camera-work & fine use of The Smiths that makes it an enjoyable experience and for the most part, it does quite well on the expectation vs reality graph.
Coming to the performances, Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Zooey Deschanel are supposed to be the sorry guy & the bitch respectively and both of them do a neat job at it. Gordon-Levitt is wholly committed to his character Tom Hansen; the hopeless romantic whose life is turned upside down by the girl he's in love with. Deschanel plays Summer who doesn't believe in the existence of true love but does grow closer to Tom until suddenly breaking up with him one day. It's quite easy to call Summer a bitch for what she did to Tom but she is a version of Tom's memory & is intended to be seen that way.
On an overall scale, (500) Days of Summer has its highs n lows just like any relationship but it manages to be an interesting sit, thanks to its confident direction, excellent performances & offbeat storyline that brims with fresh energy, plenty of charm & kinetic flair. A story about love as seen from the eyes of an immature guy who fails to grasp the fact that it is he who's the real architect of all his miseries and not the girl who left him, (500) Days of Summer may not rank amongst the usual examples of its genre(s) but it isn't that different either for what separates it is the tenderness & intellect present in the film's execution rather than the guy- centric content it packs in.