Pretentious and Undeserving of its Praise

Rating: 3/10 (1 March 2010)

Fox Searchlight Pictures, having become something of a prestigious name amongst indie distribution, usually never tends to disappoint. Somehow they can always manage to find feel good, fresh, and original films that typically have a mainstream marketability and yet still seemingly has that indie charm, (500) Days of Summer isn't one of them.
This movie has to be, without a doubt, the most wannabe, and pretentious film I have ever seen. Many scenes it becomes so blatantly obvious that the writers thought that they were just spinning out magic. That's not to imply that there isn't any passion here, I just don't think the film, nor writers behind it, are entirely deserving of this so-called praise when everything is contrived and desperate to pander to an audience equally pretentious and mundane. As bad as this film wants you to believe, there's nothing independent about it - in the sense that it doesn't possess this original, witty charm that it wants you to think it does. It's as if they watched every successful romantic comedy/ independent film and tried to mimic what they did – and believe me, it's not as wonderful as it sounds. Never have I rolled my eyes so many times at a film, strictly because every scene oozes with "Oh wouldn't this be so original," or "oh this is going to be so witty! This'll definitely get us that Best Screenplay nod and earn us our hipster credibility."
Elaborate you ask? Let's start with the blatant use of "off the wall" humor: To exemplify how this Summer character is supposedly such an extraordinary person who makes an impact anywhere she goes, it portrays her as having a charm so profound that some major study shows ice cream sales increasing all because she was working in a parlor or something. So original and desperate to seem quirky. And a comedic approach to Tom's depression? Breaking plate after plate after plate. So quirky and so innovative! Why couldn't this film be in 3D on the off chance that a shard of the plate fly into my eyeballs? And the wisecracking down-to-earth little sister, and what's that, she curses to? That is SO funny. It's not entirely that these are bad things, they're not, they are- to a certain degree- original or at least have potential but it's all too much of a desperate attempt to seem likable and to achieve "greatness" they haven't earned. I imagine the film was planned like this: "Let's do this love story, but an ANTI love story (although there's nothing really anti about it), and this guy will have the most random, quirkiest job we can think of, and he'll be smitten with her with a Smiths reference (because nothing screams great indie musical taste like the Smiths – hipster thinks he's cool because he listens to the Smiths?). Oh and there has to be this drunken karaoke bar scene and he'll sing a Pixies song! What Pixies song would ever be in karaoke machine, maybe "Where is My Mind," never "Here Comes Your Man." Just saying...
The film's execution of their so-called romance is even more infuriating. It's not that the writing is lazy, the sad part really is that the writers think it's good - I guess misguidedly uninspired? The ending did surprise me in that, even though I was not emotionally invested in the film/ characters, I was still annoyed and rather irate about the ending.
Zooey Deshanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt play their characters well enough to make me want to like them, but again, they did nothing to earn my sympathy or care. If the film had suddenly taken a violent turn and have their entire office burn down and kill everyone inside? I wouldn't have cared. Maybe it caught me on a bad day, or maybe it just sucked? I guess a lot of people disagree with me, and I guess generally speaking I would recommend it, but personally I wouldn't because this one just didn't do it for me.