Disappointing

Rating: 4/10 (26 December 2009)

Zooey Deschanel is one of the most sparkling young stars working in the film industry these days but her charms can't keep this feeble romantic comedy from falling on its face at intervals. Ms. Deschanel is Summer, and it's not just that Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom can't hold up his end. The two guys who play Tom's friends subtract from the movie every time they appear on screen, and the recurring ups and downs in the relationship between Summer and Tom did not hold this viewer's interest. Tom is in love with Summer, and she likes him but she's not ready to commit -- at least not to Tom. That's the essence of the story line, and it might work if Gordon-Levitt were as magnetic as Ms. Deschanel, if Tom's two friends were left on the cutting room floor, if the workplace in which Summer and Tom meet weren't a greeting card company (which produces a lot of lame jokes), and if the roller-coaster ride of the relationship weren't as repetitious as it is. In brief, despite Zooey Deschanel, there'e more wrong than right about this movie.