(500) Days of summer - Definitely worth a rewatch

Rating: 8/10 (14 July 2019)

"(500) Days of Summer", directed by Marc Webb is a lighthearted autopsy of a love gone sour from a strictly male point of view.
It follows the story of Tom, the nerd hero we all know and love, only this time, we're supposed to examine his impulses more critically, and see how his seemingly innocent motivations are actually toxic and unfair. "He develops a mildly delusional obsession over a girl onto whom he projects all these fantasies. He thinks she'll give his life meaning because he doesn't care about much else going on in his life. A lot of boys and girls think their lives will have meaning if they find a partner who wants nothing else in life but them. That's not healthy. That's falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person." (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Tom). Summer, on the other hand, portrayed by Zooey Deschanel, is a quiet deconstruction of the manic pixie dream girl .But unlike Garden State and Elizabethtown, 500 Days wisely grants its MPDG actual independence, and lets the sad-boy find himself only after their relationship is terminated. Although in the end we see Summer evolve as a character, from her saying that she doesnt want a relationship at all,to her getting married, which kinda breaks the rules of a MPDG.
The clever thing about this movie is that it legitimately avoids an easy reading, and can be appreciated in a million different ways by a milion different people. I also really don't think that the famous "you like The Smiths?" scene could be written today without being clouded by some heavy wink-winking. The sincere idea that you could fall for someone just because they like a sensitive/obscure band is no more. What makes 500 Days of Summer so good is that it both enforces that aesthetic while also criticizing it enough to keep the film from dating. The massively succesful plays into this idea as well.
Now about the cinematography, it seems pretty sweet and simple at first but then you notice the contrasts in this film, for example the shot sequence of Tom entering the elevator happy and then exiting the elevator deeply unhappy months later. Tom tells his friend Paul about some of Summer's characteristics that he is in love with. As he speaks of them, we see a montage of shots that shows these characteristics. The montage ends with him describing how he always hears a specific song when he thinks of her (and the song plays in the background). Later in the film, post break up, we see the exact same montage but instead of Tom describing how in love he is with these characteristics, he explains how he hates them. The montage ends with the same song playing and Tom loudly exclaiming how he hates this song. This is comedic but also serves as a reminder of how deeply hurt Tom is by the breakup. Also the use of split screen of expectations vs reality was one of the most interesting scenes in my opinion.
500 Days of Summer, an immensely pleasurable story about love telling the story of two young people with a deep connection but an uncertain future, feels both like a normal rom-com and an abnormal one; it's not obviously different but it is undeniably so. With its very catchy storyline, this movie is one of the best movies in the 'Romance' genre. With lots of highs and lows, the film is unpredictable and interesting right till the end.