Music video director Mark Webb’s debut feature film, 500 Days of Summer, stars two of the most quirkily cute actors in young Hollywood, features a solid indie rock soundtrack and, in its first 10 minutes or so, makes reference to Sid and Nancy, Belle and Sebastian and the Smiths. By all outward appearances, it would be fair to assume that 500 Days of Summer should be self-consciously hip and too smart-alecky for its own good (see: Juno and Zach Braff’s entire body of work). While the film does suffer from moments of over-cuteness, it also stands as one of the most heartfelt and balanced romantic comedies since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
A rom-com told from the point of view of the male lead (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays a hum-drum Smiths fan named Tom), 500 Days of Summer owes more to High Fidelity than Garden State. The “Summer” in question is a woman, not a season — namely Zooey Deschanel, a dream girl who works in Tom’s office (he writes greeting cards). Using a non-linear narrative, the film counts the 500 days the couple knows each other and follows their relationship from bloom to bust and beyond.
The plot is a simple scenario — boy meets girl, boy loses girl — and the aforementioned pop culture references buoy the characters rather than weigh them down. Although the characters are in their 20s, the script was probably written by people in their 30s, many of whom have found themselves drunkenly singing Pixies songs in dive karaoke bars or holding Han Solo as the ultimate male sex symbol. The fact that Gordon-Levitt is clearly adorable also helps — he is able to carry the film (and even pull off a dance number) without being cloying or pathetic.
With the heart and angst (but not the ending) of a John Hughes movie, 500 Days of Summer is bound to find an audience with younger filmgoers, but should also appeal to older and wiser audiences who have emerged from their dating years relatively unscathed. It may not be rocket science, but a simple boy-meets-girl movie can be hard to get right, and this one lands squarely on the mark.
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