John Cusack eat your broken heart out.

Rating: 6/10 (8 April 2010)

Have you ever seen Say Anything? Or for the matter any John Cusack movie from the 80's? Let me give you a short summery: boy is a kindhearted, hopeless romantic that believes in love, and the "one in a million girl" he falls for is cute (bangs for bonus points) cool, quirky, yet passive, icy heart breaker. Well if you've seen those, then you're familiar with 500 Days of Summer a romantic comedy, that's a "story of boy meets girl...but not a love story" yeah that was said by the narrator of the film, and yeah its has crappy narration.
A year ago an article in the onion pinpointed a certain kind of female archetypical character named "The Manic Pixie Dream Girl". Basically it explains a style of film about a live-in-the-moment hyperactive super cute girl that a dopey guy falls in love with not only for her charm and vitality, but for the ride of unexpected spur of the moment events she brings him on that helps remind him what its like to feel alive. 500 days of Summer falls right dab in the middle of this category because the main character, Summer (Zooey Deschanel), is the epitome of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
Then there is the indie namedropping, ohh, the indie namedropping. This movie tries so hard to appeal to the alternative crowd it makes Juno look innocent. From its role-call of indie fav's from yesterday and today (The Smiths, The Pixies, Regina Spektor...Ringo) to its too cute, schmaltzy, over endearing quality, this movie wants to be Garden State without the sincerity or Natalie Portman. Its as if the film tries to convince you a quirky relationship never existed before these two got together and did "crazy" stuff like go into IKEA's living room section and pretend to be a married couple watching TV. Or rent a porno together and try some of the positions, because, you know, regular girls just aren't weird enough for something that zany. This film should become the mad libs template for the hopeless romantic guy falling for the too cool alt. girl (including the two best guy friends and a wise beyond her years little girl) its nothing more, nothing less. John Cusack eat your broken heart out.
Oh, if you're still reading this, there is one other gripe I have about these types of films, and it's about the nature of these kinds of relationships. Listen guys, here is a tip if you identify with Tom (Joseph Gordan-Levitt) plight: it's not going to work. Any time (in any sort of relationship) if one person is more in love with the other then the other is with them, then it will be one sided and unbalanced. Plus obsessing over a girl is an unattractive quality. Show some backbone and don't fall for the sentiment of these types of films. There is nothing wrong with being romantic, but being an obsessive whiner isn't going to get you anywhere, even if you're holding a boom box over your head...unless you're Ben Gibbard, but you're not.