(500) Days of Summer - For Mindfood Mag

Note: This review was originally written for the 'reader review' section of Mindfood magazine.

The narrator of (500) Days of Summer told me from the start that the film was not a love story. I really should have believed him. The film doesn't start where one would expect (day one). Rather, it fast forwards into the film’s future and starts at day 488. I wasn’t a fan of this, as I like stories to proceed in chronological order. However, not too far in the film sped back to day one and the story truly began.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun, Stop-Loss) plays Tom Hansen, a greeting card designer who falls for a woman, Summer Finn (played by Zooey Deschanel of Yes Man and Almost Famous) who does not believe in true love. Tom believes Summer is the one. Summer, however, is quite content being a single and independent woman. The film follows the 500 days when Summer is part of Tom’s life, through the good times and the bad.

Tom’s relationship with his younger sister, often turning to her for love advice is a nice touch. I didn’t like that the film went back and forth in time, from day one to 488, day three to 276. Personally I would just prefer it to start at day one and go forward, however I guess this was part of what made the film special.

(500) Days of Summer is a cute wee film, and one thing that I really enjoyed about it was its sense of reality. It does not place unrealistic expectations on men and women about how relationships should pan out. It shows the troubles people face in relationships from the moment they meet someone they like, through to the process of beginning a relationship, addressing the speed bumps along the way. However, at times it was too real and although it is refreshing to see on the screen, it can be quite nice to escape reality with a sugar-coated rom-com every now and again.

Overall, the film was sad, but not in a reach-for-the-tissues kind of way. It was sad because I could really emphasise with the characters and feel the sadness and misery they were feeling. Then again, the narrator did tell me from the start that the film is not a love story...