Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel Director: Marc Webb Category: IIA
In (500) Days of Summer, the two lead characters are first seen bonding over a shared love of the Smiths' There is a Light that Never Goes Out. While standing beside each other in a lift, Summer (Zooey Deschanel) begins to sing along to the song Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is listening to on his iPod, proclaiming that 'if a double-decker bus crashes into us to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.'
Infused with barbed, postmodern irony - Morrissey's lyrics are actually addressed to the cabbie driving the singer around town after he is kicked out of his home by his partner - the song couldn't be more apt in launching the pair's budding relationship and the film.
A straightforward spurned-love story at its core, Marc Webb's feature-film directorial debut is driven by an imaginative reworking of old tropes usually deployed in romantic comedies. The film's most defining element is the way the story is told. It starts at the end and then rewinds to the beginning, and then ricochets between episodes within the 500 days of the title.
While non-linear narratives are hardly a novelty these days, Webb makes good use of them by splicing together comparable moments in failed architect-turned-greeting card writer Tom and his colleague Summer's on-off relationship to depict the joy and despair of a modern love affair. The same joke which lights up the day at the beginning of a relationship, for example, is swiftly seen falling flat as passion dwindles.
Webb's agile play of (screen) time and space is illustrated further by the film's heart-rending high point: when Summer invites Tom to a party at her place, the screen splits into two, one depicting his 'expectations' (that he will kiss and make up with his estranged girlfriend) and 'reality' (in which he becomes just one of many revellers, ending with him realising the devastating reason that led to Summer throwing the bash in the first place).