Not your usual rom-com

Rating: 9/10 (25 July 2009)

Eight years after starring together in Manic, Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt re-team in this offbeat romantic comedy/drama about a woman who doesn't believe true love exists and the young man who falls for her. Let me cut right to the chase -- this is one of my favorite movies so far this summer. It's everything those usually weak romantic comedies are not (see The Ugly Truth review via link below). It's smart, it's unpredictable, it's enjoyable. I had a smile on my face from the opening narrative -- when a voice-over proclaims, "this is a story of boy meets girl...but it's not a love story."
The film moves in a non-linear fashion from the perspective of greeting card designer Tom(Gordon-Levitt) who falls for his new co-worker, Summer (Deschanel).Over the span of 500 days of their relationship, Tom goes from ecstatic giddiness one moment (even indulging in a classic fantasy song and dance sequence at one point) to crippling depression the next. The question is -- will everything work out and end neatly wrapped-up as most Hollywood endings do? I highly recommend you see for yourself.
Gordon-Levitt (Mysterious Skin) proves once again that he has mastered the uneasy transition from child star to adult roles. And Deschanel (so wooden in The Happening) is growing on me -- her quirkiness is definitely better suited for comedies than straight-up drama. But I was most amazed to learn that this is director Marc Webb's first motion picture. Webb, a music video and short film director, does a masterful job in this lyrical portrait of why and how we try so hard to make sense of love.
Grade: A-; I review movies @ http://movies-TV-entertainment.blogspot.com/