There's a Chinese family in our bathroom

Rating: Null/10 (8 October 2009)

"All great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space." - Philip Johnson
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom, a young architect who falls hopelessly in love with Summer, an attractive girl who works at his office. They enter a relationship but she is reluctant to commit to anything serious. She's been burnt by past relationships and no longer believes in commitment, whilst he is a romantic who believes in "true love", "destiny" and "love at first sight".
"500 Days of Summer" has been praised for its "originality", but its really just a formulaic romantic comedy wrapped up in some simple role reversals. Usually the commitment-phobe is the male, but here it's Summer, who from the very outset warns Tom that she is merely looking for an empty sexual fling.
But though the film's humour never rises above sitcom level, "500 Days of Summer" does boast another interesting performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Levitt, who has churned out a series of great performances in such low budget independent movies as "Brick", "Manic", "Mysterious Skin" and "The Lookout", looks set to become a major A-list actor with his recent casting in Chris Nolan's "Inception". His introspective acting style, his quiet sexuality, his brooding characters, make him far more attractive than the usual one dimensional Hollywood poster boys.
The most interesting thing about the film, though, is the screenwriter's choice to portray Tom as an architect. Writers love to write themselves into their films, and often base their scripts around incidents and emotions that they personally experienced in real life. Scott Neustadter, the writer of "500 Days of Summer", himself admits that this screenplay was based on a real romance he had several years ago. But because writing is a solitary, visually boring occupation, with many negative connotations wrongly attached to it (writer as introvert, drunk, brooding, lonely, hostile, outcast etc), screenwriters often like to place themselves in their stories via the slightly more "glamomerous" art-form of "architecture". They see architecture as a sort of respectable cousin to writing. The use of architecture in this way has a long tradition in film, popping up in everything from crap like "Indecept Proposal" to "There's Something About Mary" to more prestigious fare like "Don't Look Now" and "The Fountainhead".
What's unique about "500 Days of Summer", though, is that the lead hero is both a writer (he writes greeting cards) and an architect who learns to turn his back on writing (which he associates with lies and ugliness) whilst embracing architecture (which he associates with beauty and truth). The irony is that once he embraces architecture, with all its structural beauty and clean lines, he finally learns to appreciate the truth, beauty and power of words.
Anyway, in the real world all artistry has long been eradicated from architecture. In Europe especially, architecture is now a dead art, architects living in a world where every building is subject to government regulations and strict design codes. In the UK, for example, you can't make even the simplest modification to your home (which are all, on average, over sixty years old) if the government deems it to be too outlandish, too "upseting". A simple garage or conservatory extension is often denied by the local government, who deems such things to be "too obtrusive" to the "style" and "chacteristics" of other homes in the area. Today architecture is only alive and vibrant in places like the Middle East, where heavy industry is on the rise and space is plentiful.
7.5/10 - This is an above average romantic comedy which, because of its excellent final scene, has managed to leave an overly positive final impression on audiences.
Worth one viewing.