The harsh reality of love

Rating: 8/10 (7 December 2009)

To anyone that's ever been in love, you know how it feels to have loved and to have lost.
With that said, 500 Days of Summer is a chick flick even guys have to sit up and take notice. Why? Because the message the movie sends out explains pretty much life in general.
Stuff just happens....yup, how true is that? The plot is a down on his luck greeting card writer named Tom (played brilliantly by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a miserable so and so until he meets the mysterious Summer Finn (also played brilliantly by Zooey Deschanel) and this is where the fun begins.
He spends half the movie trying to get with her, a middle portion of the movie with her and pretty much the end trying to get over her. Anyone who's had a woman (or a man) that you can't explain but just can't get over can identify with almost every situation that happens in the movie.
I'll give away everything and say right here, that midway through the movie Summer just ups and breaks up with Tom...which drives Tom over the edge into insanity. This insanity also fires him up to leave his crummy job and go into what he really wants to be, an architect. We then find out that Summer has gotten married in the months she's been away from Tom. Which leads us to the end scene which explains pretty much life. Tom is now an architect sitting where he and Summer once hung out and she happens to sit there with him. He then asks how she got married so soon after breaking it off with him and she says "It just happened" As much as that made me want to jump through the screen and strangle her, its true....things in life happen you just can't explain. Love works in mysterious ways and this movie is proof. You feel for Tom having to watch the woman he loves fall for someone else so easily, and you feel for Tom trying to rebuild his life. The acting is brilliant, the storyline is brilliant...if not sad and wall-punch inducing. The only downside is that...well there really isn't any because this movie is not claiming to be an action or a thriller.
The one and only downside to this movie which prevented it from being 10 out of 10 is when Tom gets into a fight with a jerk at the bar and Summer blames him for it....he's defending your honor sweetie, why be mad at him? I say the highlight is after Summer first breaks up with Tom, he's on a date with another girl and he describes their breakup. "She took a giant s*it on my face, literally" Her "Literally?" Tom catches himself and says "No...not literally, that's disgusting!" All in all its a life lesson to be learned by everyone, things just happen. 8 out of 10