A Joseph Gordon-Levitt Love Story Part I: (500) Days of Summer

Here we go again:

This post contains spoilers about the 2009 movie, (500) Days of Summer.

Imagine starting a new job and finding out that Joseph Gordon-Levitt works there. Pretty awesome, right? It’s every girl’s dream. Well, except for Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) to whom, in (500) Days of Summer, that actually happens when she starts a job at a greeting card company and meets Tom Hansen (Gordon-Levitt). She just shrugs him off, though, and completely friend-zones him.

I know. What an idiot.

Then, when they actually start a relationship, she’s kind of a bitch. She gets angry at him for the stupidest things and, around day two hundred and ninety, Summer tells Tom things are “too serious” before breaking his heart.

I mean, it’s JOSEPH GORDON-FREAKING-LEVITT. I get that these are characters, but still. If the director wanted it to be believable, he should have at least cast a guy with a wart, a stutter, a twitch; any sort of flaw. Anything to make it easier to conceive why anyone would dump a perfect creature like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, er…Tom Hansen.

Or maybe a flaw written in would do. Tom has almost-flaws. Like, he studied to be an architect but found himself writing greeting cards, unable to make a move towards his dreams. Or that he’s got a smile that kills.

(Despite this minor lapse in writing, the script is pretty brilliant. Based on a nonlinear narrative, each scene begins with a slide that shows what day in the five hundred it is. It might go from Day 291 to Day 1, which can make it a little hard put the events together chronologically.)

During a brief meeting together after the break-up, Summer reveals that she’s engaged (not looking for a serious relationship, eh?). But like the gentleman Tom is, he says that he wants her to be happy (which is a lie we all know).

At the end of the movie, Nick goes into an interview at an architecture firm and makes short conversation, then a date, with another interviewee: a girl named Autumn. Thus, the five hundred days ends.

While subtlety may not be the writers’ strong point, (500) Days of Summer still has three things that I love: shit jokes, a surprise ending, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.