Tom's rom-com bomb

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 2010)

Here is a rom-com with a number of differences, starting with the title. This Summer is not a season (even Los Angeles does not have that much sun) but a girl (the cute Zooey Deschanel) amorously pursued by Tom (talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt), both of whom work for a greeting cards company trading on triteness. The structure of the narrative is terribly post-modern in being non-chronological and the genre is subverted in not following the conventional formula. The final major novelty is a series of intersected cinematic flourishes such as - my favourites - an open-air dance sequence of triumph and a split screen depicting expectation and reality.
At the heart of the movie's success is a clever script from Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. The film begins with the disclaimer: "Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental ... Especially you, Jenny Beckman ... Bitch." but Neustadter has admitted that the story was based on a real romance that he experienced while studying at the London School of Economics. The departure from the conventional rom-com resolution and the sense of authenticity imbue this entertaining tale with an element of reality as well as much hilarity.