"(500) Days of Summer" is something seldom seen: an original romantic comedy.
It bristles with energy, emotional and intellectual, as it flits about the dizzying highs and weeping-karaoke lows of a passionate entanglement. The film's many virtues include an unusual storytelling conceit, a sharp sense of music, a lover's-eye view of Los Angeles and on-the-money performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel.
Tom (Gordon-Levitt), a greeting-card writer and frustrated architect, falls head over heels for office mate Summer (Deschanel), whose slightly off-kilter loveliness is terminally enhanced by their shared affection for the Smiths and their ability to turn IKEA into a fun house. He's romantic; she's pragmatic -- after hearing her "have fun now" philosophy, a friend declares, "You're a guy!"
The narrative hopscotches around the 500 days of their acquaintance -- as memories tend to in real life -- connecting one moment to another, seeing more clearly from the comparison. Tom's subjective recollections can paint the world as a bright, giddy dance number or a gray, hopeless dungeon.
The fractured calendar isn't all that Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber's script has going for it; it's loaded with telling details (as Elvis Costello sang, "mementos of affairs") and just enough wit to stay believable. Some romantic-comedy greatest hits are sung -- the wacky best friends, the karaoke scene -- but unlike most examples of the genre, there's no taking for granted that this or that will happen, or even that these two are meant to be. "(500) Days' " truth can be painful, but the resulting comedy is more resonant.
First-time feature director Marc Webb uses his background in music video to beautifully present the action and crisply move the story along, adding subtle touches, such as seasonal color palettes, to help guide viewers through the twisted chronology. His (and the script's) larger gestures, such as split screens juxtaposing reality and fantasy, as well as animated sequences, express Tom's subjective view without mashing wrong notes.
Webb's use of music, principally pop tunes, is anything but an afterthought, as the carefully chosen songs enhance the atmospheres of scenes and chart the romance's line graph. He helps himself considerably by casting two young actors with the intelligence and versatility to convey each tiny segment of their separate arcs.
