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I heard nothing but positive things about the 2009 romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer prior to seeing it so imagine my disappointment to find this allegedly quirky and offbeat romantic comedy hard to invest in because it works SO hard at being quirky and offbeat that it just becomes forced, manipulative, and annoying.
This is the story of Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt), a dreamy-eyed romantic virgin, and Summer (Zooey Deschanel), a cynical non-believer in love whose favorite Beatle is Ringo, and their rocky, on again off again romance, but the primary hook that was supposed to make this film something different is that the story is told out of sequence...each scene is represented by the number corresponding to each day of Tom and Summer's relationship.
The screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weaver is awash in romantic cliches, despite the complex set-up of the story not being told in sequential order, a writing concept that, for some reason, really worked with a crime drama like Pulp Fiction, but just doesn't work with romantic comedy for some reason, at least this romantic comedy...as the final credits rolled, I really wasn't sure why the relationship ended...or even if it really did or not.
Joseph Gordon Levitt displays leading man potential as Tom, but the screenplay is fighting him all the way, but he has a grand assist from director Marc Webb who has clearly given the actor enough trust in his own instincts to make some unexpected moves from the character work. Deschanel, an actress whose screen persona has always defined "offbeat and quirky" comes off surprisingly stifled here and maybe it's just me, but I felt no chemistry between the two actors at all, stemmed primarily from the fact that Deschanel, costumed like a sixth grade teacher and Levitt, costumed like a prep school student just didn't look right together. Deschanel looked about ten years older than Levitt here.
The film is not all bad...Webb has an imaginative director's eye that includes an off-the-cuff musical number set to a Hall and Oates song, effective use of Manhattan locations, but the confusing screenplay and the inability to invest in the leads as a couple made it hard for me to love this film as much as everyone else does.
I heard nothing but positive things about the 2009 romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer prior to seeing it so imagine my disappointment to find this allegedly quirky and offbeat romantic comedy hard to invest in because it works SO hard at being quirky and offbeat that it just becomes forced, manipulative, and annoying.
This is the story of Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt), a dreamy-eyed romantic virgin, and Summer (Zooey Deschanel), a cynical non-believer in love whose favorite Beatle is Ringo, and their rocky, on again off again romance, but the primary hook that was supposed to make this film something different is that the story is told out of sequence...each scene is represented by the number corresponding to each day of Tom and Summer's relationship.
The screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weaver is awash in romantic cliches, despite the complex set-up of the story not being told in sequential order, a writing concept that, for some reason, really worked with a crime drama like Pulp Fiction, but just doesn't work with romantic comedy for some reason, at least this romantic comedy...as the final credits rolled, I really wasn't sure why the relationship ended...or even if it really did or not.
Joseph Gordon Levitt displays leading man potential as Tom, but the screenplay is fighting him all the way, but he has a grand assist from director Marc Webb who has clearly given the actor enough trust in his own instincts to make some unexpected moves from the character work. Deschanel, an actress whose screen persona has always defined "offbeat and quirky" comes off surprisingly stifled here and maybe it's just me, but I felt no chemistry between the two actors at all, stemmed primarily from the fact that Deschanel, costumed like a sixth grade teacher and Levitt, costumed like a prep school student just didn't look right together. Deschanel looked about ten years older than Levitt here.
The film is not all bad...Webb has an imaginative director's eye that includes an off-the-cuff musical number set to a Hall and Oates song, effective use of Manhattan locations, but the confusing screenplay and the inability to invest in the leads as a couple made it hard for me to love this film as much as everyone else does.