(500) Days of Summer

Director: Marc Webb
Writers:Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler

The narrator of this movie will tell you what it is about. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl does not. Tom Hansen (Gordon-Levitt) is a young guy who has always believed in love. He loves old movies and music. He studied to be an architect, but as life goes, he ended up writing greeting cards. One day his boss hires a new assistant named Summer Finn (Deschanel). Summer appears to be a normal girl, but somehow she has an effect on men that leaves them?stunned.

We are then shot back and forth between different days in their 500-day relationship. Around day 200 or so Tom tells a joke in Ikea that Summer isn?t amused with. On day 40-something, Summer is having a ball in Ikea with Tom. On Day 22 they have drinks and do karaoke in a bar and really get to know each other. On Day 300 they are working on being friends etc.

Tom is convinced that Summer is his one true love and is determined to make it work through the help of his friends and much younger sister.

The story is simple and has been done before, but I haven?t seen it quite this way. The back and forth between the numbered days is very simple to follow and the events often parallel each other. There is a hilarious dance number very Bollywood-ish and just cheesy enough to be endearing and not annoying. Even the parts done ?interview? style of Tom?s friends views on relationships was good and surprisingly not out of place.

Of course Joseph Gordon-Levitt was excellent as Tom. When is he not excellent as anyone (if you need an example see: Brick)? He?s so easy to indentify with even if you don?t love movies and music from the 60s. A hopeless romantic that is remarkably not a whiny bitch. You root for him. You want him to win at something in his mediocre life.

Zooey Deschanel is incredibly cute as usual. And the friends, although quirky and strange, weren?t the least bit annoying and were quite funny.

I give this movie an A. The hipster in me would watch this over and over as ?this is my love life? type movie. How lucky am I to get this AND Away We Go in one summer. I was worried they would be pretty similar. But they weren?t. And damn near equally enjoyable (I loved Away We Go just a hair or two more).