Like the relationship portrayed, enjoyable but may not age well...

Rating: 6/10 (31 December 2009)

An old cliché (yet not uninteresting one) is "Would you want to know when you were going to die?" This film, as noted elsewhere presents a dead relationship, well before its demise. And so for some folks, that death will feel protracted.
The pace and editing however make the film nowhere near so anguishing. The movie makers jump across time liberally, helping to juxtapose the sweet and sour parts of a relationship in an often humorous way. This is much better than a film split into halves with a "He Saw, She Saw" divide.
Many women will enjoy the film as they get to see the man in a relationship suffer (not to be too glib, but I think I'm not too off the mark here.) Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Tom is the inverse of the bad boy girls aren't supposed to love, but they do. Tom is sweet, shy and often nearly as cute as a puppy. And he adores Summer.
Many men will like this as Zooey Deschanel's Summer character is cute and a bit of a wounded bird. Yet she also has surprising pluck and crucially she initiates the romance (read sex?) despite Tom's initial awkward cluelessness. Also, her character...like many objects of affection...is not really clearly seen, mysterious and open for projections by Tom (and the male audience/Zooey zealots).
Many men and women will like this film as I do think we are set up to hope/look for the whirlwind romance when we are young. Such love is tough to find, much less sustain. Or in this case, tough to architect such love with just one of the two willing to do the heavy lifting.
Ah mirage of youth...
Anyways, the film here is getting rave reviews, and honestly I found myself carried along with the film mostly.
Spoilers start...
I am mildly fascinated, if not relieved, by the discussion posted on the boards here that the last meeting with Summer was all in Tom's head. Just a function of his "actualization" or what-have-you. More than the season change at the very end though, other parts of the film irked me. For example...
1) The savvy little sister.
2) The plate breaking (which led to a sister scene).
3) The greeting card lampooning. Although the solo ovation from his buddy maybe indicated they were lampooning themselves. Nah... The film is just thinner than it feels.
I know that Tom's epiphany is what the film is all about, that and the fact that love, like trummerflora, can bloom again. I find myself a little curious about Summer's epiphany, all we get is Dorian Gray and then a wedding dress?
Like your first love, maybe enjoy this film while you watch it, and then prepare to move on?
6.5/10
Thurston Hunger