(500) Days of Summer
This (un)romantic comedy was one of the biggest and most unexpected delights of 2009.
We are warned at the very beginning that, while it's a "boy meets girl" story, this movie is definitely not a love story. We are treated to moments from the five-hundred-day relationship between Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) - the happy beginning; the painful break-up; the failed reconciliation - but not necessarily in that order. The non-linear narrative makes the movie. Equally creative are the wonderful fantasy sequences.
This is a light, very funny film - and it's completely at home on the small screen. Warning: I recommended '(500) Days of Summer' to a friend who'd recently been through a messy break-up. It struck a raw nerve. He identified very strongly with Tom, despised Summer and didn't really see the funny side of the movie! Perhaps it's best watched by happy couples...
