Review: (500) Days of Summer

Grade: A+

(500) Days of Summer is a movie about boy meets girl then boy loses girl. The boy is Thomas and he has what some might consoder a misconception about love that has been instilled in him by (as the movie puts it) listening to too many pop songs and watching The Graduate, that there is only one woman out there for him. The girl is Summer, who is quite has quite the opposite views on love as Thomas, she doesn't believe in true love and doesn't believe in "the one". Thomas studied to be an achitect but works at a greeting card company writing cards, and he's actually pretty good at it. Summer just moved to LA from Michigan and just started to work at the greeting card company as Tom's boss' assistant. From the moment that Tom first sees Summer he falls in love with her. Over the course of a couple of weeks Tom gets to know Summer and they eventually start a relationship of sorts. After a while things go sour and they end up breaking up. Tom then tries to get her back and spends a lot of time trying to get over her.

This movie was fantastic. It's as simple as that. It's shown in a very interesting style. It starts around day 280 and then jumps around a bit going from day 1 to day 290 and just continues to hop back and forth through time, before the break-up to after the break-up. It makes the whole experience that much more interesting and enjoyable. The writing was brilliant and really properly portrays the heartbreak that can occur after a berak-up. This movie also starts with the second best disclaimer I have ever seen in front of a movie (the first being Dogma, of course).

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Lookout, Brick) plays the main character Thomas. I have always liked Gordon-Levitt and am so glad to see him get better and better roles recently. This movie truely shows his talents as an actor. He really makes you feel both his joy, especially in scenes like the one where he is dancing on his way to work and people are joining him, a truely geat and hilarious scene, as well as his pain, like the scenes where he's lying in bed simply pining for Summer. Zooey Deschanel (Yes Man, Elf) plays the titular character Summer. Again, I have always liked Zooey and she just keeps getting better and better. Her portrayal of this girl, Summer, who just doesn't believe in love and relationships any more was great. She does a great job showing how this girl kind of strings him along with no real intention of letting the relationship blossom into true love. Both of these actors are great and movies like this prove to me that these two will be some of the greatest actors of our generation.

If you like a good movie, go see (500) Days of Summer. If you like good acting, go see (500) Days of Summer. If you like to be entertained and leave a movie feeling good, go see (500) Days of Summer. This movie is easily one of the best movies of 2009. It is simply brilliant from start to finish. I can not reccomend seeing this movie enough.

Great quote: "Here's one you wrote last week: Roses are red, violets are blue... f*** you w****."