CINEMA: (500) Days of Summer

Fed up with sloppy, sentimental, twee, syrupy romances? Then get yourself down to this movie which is less chick-flick romcom, more doomed romance soundtracked by the The Smiths and more obscure indie bands.

Our hero is Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a sensitive soul who believes in the concept of one true love with a soul mate. Tom is on a quest to find “the one” and when he meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel) he believes he has found her. The problem is, Summer isn’t ready for a love so overwhelming it consumes your soul, in fact, she doesn’t really believe in a love that has somehow been cosmically ordained, but she likes Tom and a romance of sorts develops. Thus, over the course of 500 days, Tom sets out to convince Summer he is her “one”, that she loves him as much as he loves her and that they are destined to be together, forever (in electric dreams).

(500) Days Of Summer is wry and dry, clever and witty, sweet and sour. It’s about misery and sadness and loss of faith, but it is also about that weird, warm, gooey feeling you get when you fall in love. Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are both actors you warm to immediately, mostly because they are so human and fallible, and it’s nice the film is even-handed so you don’t end up rooting for one and hating the other.

Watch out for a fabulous performance by Chloe Grace Moretz who plays Tom’s older-than-her-years sister Rachel, oracle of wisdom, common sense and sound dating advice, while Tom’s male friends are good-hearted yet useless.

So, a thoroughly modern romance from rookie director Marc Webb who manages to make you smile through Tom’s pain.

Dee Pilgrim

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