A Quirky Romance that Handles Itself in a Realistic Way

Rating: 9/10 (24 January 2017)

500 Days of Summer follow Tom, who falls for the newly moved in Summer, and how their relationship develops over the course of 500 days.
The movie swaps between days, showing one of the later days of their relationship, then switching back to one of the earlier ones. So the audience is almost always anticipating what will happen next, and yet somehow that works really well. We see aspects of their relationship when they were good, then when they were bad, then somewhere in between. For the most part it goes chronologically, but other events are emphasized by switching between parts of their relationship, thus giving the audience a full view of how it all went down.
The relationship itself is fun and authentic, and a lot of the movie is fantastical, meant to be taken with a grain of salt. It adds a level of humor to the movie, and it is, in the end, very funny. It uses these fantasy sequences to emphasize certain feelings, and it's kind of hilarious yet very real. When the things in this movie take place and it takes an unrealistic path, it's not hard to believe that the characters really feel like what is happening would be happening.
The two major characters are both a lot of fun, and they have pretty good chemistry together. No, their chemistry isn't perfect, but that's part of the authenticity of them. Their dialogue is written in such a way where humor flows into the script and is often clever, whereas in a lot of other comedies jokes are just forced in. It never sacrifices it's script for laughs, and I really appreciated that. But they're aren't just hilarious, they're realistic. They say and do things that would otherwise be self-incriminating in a relationship like there's, showing how flawed both of them are. There is no real good guy, no one to root for all the way, right to the end of it's reasonably short run time.
One of the best aspects of this movie is the soundtrack. Every song is lovely to listen to and fits the current setting or mood of the film. Plus the songs are all just good songs. I've listened to the soundtrack several times already, and I can't wait to do so again.
The movie is, not only great on the technical spectrum, but also in the emotional spectrum. The third act throws so much at the audience that it makes them want to cry. And yet, these twists and turns are easily believable as possible events that could happen in real life, which I think makes it slightly more tear-jerking.
Overall 500 Days of Summer is a fantastic movie. It's filled with great characters, writing, humor, music, emotion, and realism. There are a handful of small nitpicks I have with it. Little scenes that maybe don't work as well as they could have, but are easy to brush off. In the end I would definitely recommend this movie.