A fairly fresh, yet slightly over-stylised anti-romantic comedy.

Rating: 8/10 (2 September 2009)

Before I watched 500 days of Summer I didn't really know too much about it. I had seen the trailer that had spruced it up to be a quirky yet throwaway romantic comedy, yet in reality the film seemed to have much greater aspirations.
The story revolves around this bloke and his obsession with his boss's new secetary, taking us through the story of their relationship in an interesting non-linear way. The non-linear storytelling is only a fraction of the dollops of style that is thrown in the direction of the film. Some of it works perfectly fine, adding an interesting extra dimension to the film, however it seems in places some of the style that was thrown ever so liberally completely misses and ends up getting stuck in your eye, leaving you fidgeting awkwardly wishing it wasn't there.
For the most part the story is interesting, managing to put a freshish spin on the whole "boy meets girl" thing that is seen so often in films. I did slap my head a few times when I thought the film had strayed into the realms of cheese that I thought it was going to stay away from, but these conventions are needed for the story to work. One scene in particular where the dude stands up in a meeting at work and makes a heartfelt speech about what he has learnt (and therefore the films message) went slightly too far in my opinion and cheapened an otherwise pretty original film.
Zooey Deschanel has really sexy eyes.
I think it is attempting to show the reality of love and life, which is that there isn't really a reality beyond what we impose based on our experiences and environment, which these days has been really quite distorted by the fakeness and shallowness of Hollywood love stories. The trouble with trying to do a critique like that is that when you have to write an ending to it you have to follow through with your convictions and let the story come to its natural conclusion, a conclusion, in this case by definition of the thesis, isn't going to sit well with the conventions of the genre. I think they chickened out, but only slightly. I do recommend that you see this film for yourself and see what you think.