I Make Movie Review-500 Days of Summer

I know I've been wearing the "A" grade out lately-but the truth is, it's been a great summer at the movies. Up, Hurt Locker, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Star Trek, etc. etc.-formidable triumphs all. But it's the romantic comedy that's really come to the fore this summer. From Julie and Julia to Away We Go and now the wholly original dazzler 500 Days of Summer, the recent season has been jam-packed with great romantic comedies-genuine, tender-hearted films that re-charge the old Boy Meets Girl conventions for the new millenium. And, yet again, I'll be ladling out an "A" grade for Summer. While the other two romances mentioned above meddle gently and movingly with the conventions of the Model Movie Romances, this one smashes the model to pieces and makes its own. Tom and Summer (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel), love and lose, as is typical of this type of cinema. But, unlike other love stories, this one has no linear structure-we learn the details of this relationship in a series of vignettes culled from this date or that night in bed. Instead of trapping the movie in Gimmickry Hell, this gives debut director Marc Webb total freedom-freedom he uses to excellent effect. Without the restrictions of space and time, we see scenes in the order that will amount to the greatest emotional impact. In one scene, Tom and Summer climb sit happily at the movies. In the next, God knows how many months later, Tom is in the same movie theatre, hungover, asleep, alone. Webb has little need for reality either-fairy-tale narrators, hysterical post-coital musical numbers, cartoons-they all make appearances here than, enhancing the story instead of overloading it. It's an ambitious experiment that wouldn't work without the two phenomenal leads. Gordon-Levitt gets so deep under the skin of Tom that the line between actor and character almost disappears. And Deschanel scores a knockout, conveying both confusion and confidence with her tremulous smile. I can only fault the film for siding a tad too much with Tom from time to time. But a movie this invigorating, this brilliantly written and smartly soundtracked, this wickedly witty and shocking close-the-bone, is more than worth taking a chance on. I'll be going back to see this one again very soon. A-.