500 Days of Summer Tells The Truth

Rating: 10/10 (7 November 2009)

Although the narrator makes a disclaimer at the start of the movie about it not being a love story, 500 Days of Summer can be easily said as one of the best romantic films of the year. Sure, the premise seems normal enough, but it manages to present itself in a different light, something that's fun to watch and at the same time actually something you can relate to.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is pretty convincing as Tom, the love-struck protagonist of the tale. The always adorable Zooey Deschanel plays Summer, his love interest who just wants their relationship to be "casual." Watching their times together is like a trip down memory lane, proving that a lot can happen in 500 days, some you would want to keep on remembering while others you would rather bury.
I do not know much about the director Marc Webb, but seeing 500 Days of Summer has made me a believer. He uses a lot of techniques to flesh out certain ideas (the dance number in the park was a delight to see) or emphasize situations (that Expectation and Reality bit was ingenious) that normally would have been just treated as just another scene. These contributions make the film very engaging, somehow doing better than the special effects commonly found in action pieces.
All and all, 500 Days of Summer is a movie which really hits the spot. Its brutal honesty about life, love and relationships combined with the right elements of romance and humor gets its audience captivated every single second of its running time.
Of course, not everyone can get the sort of happy ending of Tom right away, but it gives people hope that they're somehow headed towards that direction. It gives consolation to those who always blame themselves for things turning out badly. The truth is, as the film points out, sometimes, stuff just happen and you have to learn how to let go.
Oh, and did I mention it has a really wonderful soundtrack? Yes it does. So if you were not able to catch it in the cinemas, please make sure to get the DVD. With a movie like this one, the more you watch, the more you will understand what its message is.