Love in a nutshell

Rating: 8/10 (15 January 2011)

Tom Hansen (played by the phenomenal Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a mild-mannered card-writing architect. You know - the guy who thinks up lines in birthday cards and such, but in truth wants to mold the city-line. A romantic at heart he deftly falls in love with his new co-worker Summer (Zooey Deschanel). Jumping from across 500 days (to and fro) the movie presents us the high and lows of their relationship and break-up, as well as with the hardships with letting go of the love that keeps him bound to Summer. Everything pulsating with intelligent dialogue, subtle and funny humour, as well as with some really thoughtful input on sex, love and the other relationship stuff.
Slightly experimental quirky romantic comedy with an intriguing scattered structure, which does not draw much comparisons to anything I've ever seen. And that's despite the fact that the movie is populated with pop-cultural references and borrowed scenes from other movies on an almost Tarantino-like level. Frontlining Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in my opinion the best actor of his generation (including i.e. Leonardo di Caprio) to such a strong script also does a multitude of favours for the movie, as he manages to sell the full range of emotions from love and passion to hate and despair seemingly without an effort. I do however find Zooey Deschanel unable to cope with the character and script she is offered (a feeling I see is not popular among viewers). The character she plays is irritating, self-centered and essentially unlikeable. I understand that relationships mean that opposites attract, but Summer is sold at the beginning of the movie through voice-over as the heart and soul of the universe, but ultimately she is scripted as a heartless, unbelievably selfish and egoistical vixen, which seems to conflict with earlier information on her person. That said Zooey's chemistry with Tom is spot on and albeit she never has the same screen presence as Gordon-Levitt she does an admirable back-up job, which helps the story flow and entrench us into the high-and-lows for their relationship. All in all the misgivings of her character have to be put on the shoulders of the script, but Zooey never seems to have the strength of character to convince me that she is worth the despair.
Thankfully however Summer is a supporting character and despite relatively good screen-time she fades into the background of the emotions and feelings of Tom Hansen, who dominates the screen throughout the movie, even when singing "The Pixies" during drunken karaoke. The question essentially isn't whether Summer deserves Tom's admiration and love, but on the process he goes through and where it leads him to in life.
Apart from Summer the remaining cast on the movie is extremely intriguing and likable, especially highlighted by a very influential minor role by "Kick Ass"'s Chloe Moretz.
I have minor issues with a couple of scenes, albeit one concerns the climax of the movie, when Tom quits his job. Tom basically starts throwing out nonsensical 'deep thoughts' in front off his work comrades, which seem forced and are a bit lacking in any substantial afterthought. Given this is a key scene it slightly hit the overall grading of this almost perfect movie. I always wasn't too keen on the solution of the movie and the way Tom passed on to Autumn. The whole sequence felt a bit stale - as if the scriptwriter got hit by a deadline and quickly pasted on the first ending that came to mind.
In the end minus one for the character of Summer and another minus one for a couple of badly written scenes.