Pun Salad

As I type, (500) Days of Summer is #224 on IMDB's list of the top 250 movies of all time. I usually say "I don't know about that", but in this case, I say … yeah, maybe. I had a great time watching it.

As the title implies, the movie covers 500 days, although does so out of sequence; each scene is helpfully numbered so you know where you are, though. Synopsis-wise, I can't do much better than the lines uttered by the omniscient narrator at the movie's start:

This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total mis-reading of the movie The Graduate. The girl, Summer Finn of Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parent's marriage she'd only love two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8th. He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.

Well, more accurately, it's half a love story: his half. Tom is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Summer is played by Zooey Deschanel; they're both great. They could have come across as whiny and self-absorbed—and they are, to a certain extent. But they remain sympathetic. The script is clever, and there's one wonderful scene at the zenith of the relationship, where Tom's happiness manifests itself in a production song and dance number, complete with animated bluebirds.

Things don't remain that sunny, though, and (in particular) Tom is destined for a long dark night of the soul. He's miserable, but the movie remains pretty funny.