95 Minutes of ‘(500) Days of Summer’

The Plot: The movie is set up to hop around the 500 days of the relationship of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel), alternating between the high times, the low times, and the rock-bottom times — for Tom anyway. He’s a “soulmate” believer, while she thinks love is a nice delusion, at best. If you’re of a certain age, you’ve been there, on one side or the other (or both at different times). Romantics beware: The narrator says right up front that this relationship is not going to end well.

This is a tricky movie review, because I get the feeling that men and women could see this movie and come away with completely different things because of their point of view. In my opinion, Summer is just a tad selfish or evil. She’s either blissfully oblivious about the destruction she leaves in her wake (selfish), or just doesn’t care (evil). A different point of view, of course, is that Summer warns Tom that she’s not looking to fall in love, and more to the point, doesn’t believe that such a thing exists. It’s a fair warning.

The Verdict: Good movie; not sure if it’s a good first date movie. Strike that: it would be a horrible first-date movie. If you’re secure in your relationship, however, it can provide a lot of interesting discussion points on the way home. If you’re not secure in your relationship, however, it can provide a lot of interesting discussion points on the way home. Certain scenes of this movie work very well, with the “Expectation vs. Realty” split screen and Tom’s different takes (depending on his mood) of Summer’s various attributes springing to mind.

Interesting tidbits:
• Male lead Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays one of the head bad guys in the really, really awful “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.” So, if you can only see one Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie this year (for some reason), make it this one, not that one.

• Zooey Deschanel shows approximately 915% more personality in this film than she did in M. Night Shyamalan’s really, really awful “The Happening.” That’s just an estimate, but I stand behind it.

• So, in summary, both stars have been in really, really awful films. This one’s pretty good, though.