Saved by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Chloë Grace Moretz

Rating: 4/10 (27 November 2019)

I'll start off by saying I watched this while purposefully going through some of JGL's earlier works that I'd yet to see - between 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) and Inception (2010).
I'm not a fan of romcoms in general but I watched this with an open mind and no expectations. I couldn't believe how much I struggled to watch parts of it. It was slow, dull, and the non-linear timeline did nothing for me. I didn't enjoy having to sit through the repeated back-and-forth of watching one person's heartache and the other's selfish indifference when it could have been perfectly well told in chronological order.
As expected, Joseph Gordon-Levitt did a fantastic job as Tom Hanson, and it's through his underappreciated acting skills you can sympathise with his character. Z. Deschanel's character Summer was irritating to watch, but you can see what she was trying to achieve. Some people might think the two of them had chemistry, but I would disagree - anything of that sort I'd again put it down to JGL's acting skills as you mostly see his expressions and body language when the two are in the same shot. Parts with Chloë Grace Moretz (who played Tom's younger sister Rachel) was a refreshing palate-cleanser between the ups and downs of Tom and Summer's pseudo-relationship, and watching the siblings was by far the most genuinely entertaining and delightful parts of the movie. Clark Gregg for his few lines was also good as Tom's sensitive and diplomatic boss Vance.
The movie wasn't a complete disaster, of course, but the overall plot was frustrating and left me pretty disinterested in watching anything more from ZD, and looking forward to (re)watching something better from JGL. Perhaps 10 Things I Hate About You, a romcom that is *actually* witty, meaningful, and full of believable chemistry between friends and loves....