Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Zooey Deschanel in (500) Days of Summer (Fox Searchlight 2009).

AMERICAN CINEMA has shortchanged lovers of romantic comedies this year. Films like The Ugly Truth and Bride Wars have shown none of the real charm or warmth you would want from the genre.

(500) Days Of Summer is a very different proposition. It is unusually fresh, smart and sweet, with characters you can take to your heart and a degree of conviction that has become all too rare. It is a perfect date movie.

Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is one of the rising stars of America cinema and projects the quality of a likeable everyman figure in the tradition of Jack Lemmon. He plays Tom Hansen, a failed architecture graduate who now supplies the corny verses in greeting cards for all occasions.

He is an incurable romantic who believes that one day he will meet his soul mate and live happily ever after. He thinks that day has arrived when Summer (Zooey Deschanel) joins the company. They have the same taste in music, a similar sense of humour and seem completely compatible. The only problem is that she doesn’t think so and only sees him as a friend.

(500) Days Of Summer is a delightfully unconventional tale that unfolds in a non-linear fashion. That means we could visit day 290 of the relationship immediately after day 8 which produces some poignant juxtapositions as the height of happiness snuggles next to the depth of despair.

The film is set in sun-dappled vision of Los Angeles and has a wonderfully eclectic soundtrack that ranges from The Smiths to Simon and Garfunkel and Carla Bruni. It is a film bursting with bright ideas including one fantastic sequence in which Tom’s morning after exuberance blossoms into an all-singing, all-dancing production number that involves everyone he meets along the way to work. Everyone should have a morning like that.

Nationwide release

Director: Marc Webb
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Grace Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler
Screenwriters: Scott Neustadter, Michael H Weber
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 95 mins
Country: USA
Year: 2009

© Allan Hunter, 2009

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