by Katie Archer - This Is Surrey Today
Last year a study by Heriot Watt University suggested love lives up and down the country were being ruined by rom coms.These sickly sweet, fluffy films were accused of being passion assassins in disguise by giving us all unrealistic expectations of relationships.So don’t be put off by this film because it’s classified as a rom com – it certainly isn’t leading anyone up the garden path of thinking every love story ends happily ever after.For all of us who can’t stomach yet another nauseatingly formulaic tale of boy meets girl, this is the anti rom com.Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a true romantic. He believes in finding The One. He is exactly the sort of person who regularly has his hopes raised, then dashed, by rom coms.Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) is his polar opposite. She doesn’t believe love exists and doesn’t see the point in wasting her youth on getting a boyfriend.
These two opposing views collide when Summer starts work as a secretary at the greetings card firm where Tom is slowly wasting away what could have been a brilliant career as an architect.Tom immediately becomes convinced that Summer is the girl he’s been searching for, despite discouragement from workmate McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) who claims she’s too aloof to like.Discovering a shared love of The Smiths in the lift one morning, Tom’s certainties about Summer being the love of his life are cemented and he drives friends McKenzie and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler) mad with his obsessing over everything she says and does.One drunken work night out at a karaoke bar, a sloshed McKenzie gives his friend a helping hand by telling Summer Tom likes her – and from there the relationship tentatively takes off.
Except… is it a relationship? Summer refuses to put a label on it and Tom tries to convince himself this is all fine with him as he goes through ever more anguished stages of emotional trauma.(500) Days of Summer dots about backwards and forwards through the 500 days of Tom’s obsession with the woman he believes is the one for him.This isn’t as annoying a tactic as you might expect – in fact it works rather well as a lot of the scenes are played over and over again as Tom gains more insight into what went on between himself and Summer.It’s obvious from the off how all this is going to end between the mismatched pair, but the film is no less enjoyable for it.
Some of the film’s style borrows so heavily from Amelie that it seems a bit cheeky, but this offbeat romance has so much charm and likeability that you can forgive it a bit of copycatting.Chloe Moretz has a lovely role as Tom’s little sister Rachel, with some great lines as she tries to counsel her lovestruck brother through his heartache.There aren’t any really stand-out performances, but it’s a solid cast and a refreshing change from the usual samey rom com line ups.Even if you’ve got a heart of stone and can’t stand the merest hint of romance in a film, go and see this. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Tags: 500 Days of Summer, Film, Review