Great, fresh insight into the romance genre

Rating: 8/10 (6 May 2012)

This is not a love story. That is the warning given to the viewer at the beginning of the movie. And it certainly meets the assumption as we wander deeper and deeper into the complicated relationship of Tom and Summer.
He is an idealistic dreamer, who think that in order to achieve happiness he has to fall in love with the one, perfect girl. She happens to be his exact contrary female version - she doesn't believe in happy endings and fairy tales. So how exactly do these two very different people end up being a couple for the eponymous 500 days? For all the lovebirds out there, this could mean that sometimes the exception proves the rule! However, I have to blunt right now - sadly, as the viewer is about to find out, the differences and arising conflicts can only produce a disastrous result and drive two people apart.
There are many reasons why I simply fell in love with this picture: it is not a typical movie, due to the fact that it connects some aspects of a typical romance with various features of a down- to-earth drama. This process is best shown through the intersection of parts that show everything in bright and positive colors, with the sun shining and the birds singing, and parts that include rainstorms, dark humor, sad faces and deeply philosophical sentences. This cinematic procedure really invites to get a broader look at this very particular relationship, which can sometimes seem as a smooth and joyful one. And then, just a few seconds later, it provides a scene that changes the perspective 180 degree around.
Great performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. You could certainly see that they had so much fun playing the main parts. What is more, because of the fact that the connection between the two stars carries the whole plot in an amazing fashion, the recognition that they deserve for their wonderful acting should be even bigger.
Personally, I am not a big fan of romantic movies, that is why I didn't know what to expect when I started watching (500) Days of Summer. But in the end I was astonished. It provides a new light onto this genre and changes the way we might perceive it. It stand out from the crowd of all those, mostly boring, standard romances and shows that in real life not everybody ends up living happily ever after - sometimes we have to put up a hell of a fight to get closer to a person we admire. And even then, it's a long way home.