An "Annie Hall" for the New Millennium

Rating: 8/10 (27 July 2009)

An utterly engaging bittersweet romance about a boy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and a girl (Zooey Deschanel) who want different things from one another during the course of a gradually waning relationship.
This is "Annie Hall" for the 21st Century. The film is funny, brisk and entertaining, but it's also fairly serious minded about young love and the pitfalls it's prone to. Both actors give terrific performances -- Gordon-Levitt is proving himself to be one of our best up-and-coming actors, while Deschanel bravely gives us a heroine who we end up not really liking all that much.
Despite some overly cute elements (the several scenes between Gordon-Levitt and his little sister, who gives him romantic advice during timeouts at her soccer game, for example), "(500) Days of Summer" feels one hundred times more authentic than the usual romantic comedy fare churned out by Hollywood. It suggests that some of our most significant relationships are more valuable for what they teach us about ourselves than the fleeting emotional connections they give us to another person.
Grade: A