19/50x2: (500) Days of Summer

As I sat down to write a little bit about this film I suddenly got this and 50/50 jumbled together, so this could have been one odd review - but still probably an excellent movie.

Well, as I have said before Joseph Gordon-Levitt is quite possibly one of the best working actors in Hollywood today. In (500) Days of Summer he stars as Tom Hansen, a college graduate with a degree in architecture, who is working at a greeting card company.

He works with his best friend McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) - who I really enjoy almost every time I see him and wish that he was in more things (oh and is married to Christina Hendricks, but I am of topic) - and one day notices a new hire as his boss' assistant, Summer (Zooey Deschanel).

Tom confesses to McKenzie that he is attracted to Summer, and one night over karaoke lets it slip to Summer. Despite not wanting a boyfriend, Summer and Tom grow rather close and eventually do become a couple.

The rest of the film, which is done rather well with a graphic to break things up, jumps to good and bad portions of their relationship. During the first part of their relationship everything is happy and chipper, the birds are singing - but as the relationship goes on things become much gloomier.

As things progress, Tom and Summer are out together and when another man flirts with her he jumps in and gets into a fight. Thinking it showed his feelings for her he was happy about it, but she was not and they get into their first real fight.

On day 290, after seeing The Graduate Summer announces to Tom that they should break up because she is no longer happy with their relationship, but that he is still her best friend.

He storms off and falls into a great depression, and his much younger sister, Rachel (Chloe Moretz) is called in to get him out of his doldrums. Rachel is in the film a few other times as Tom seems to always go to her for help.

I will not reveal anymore as to what happens, because this is a really good movie and if you haven't seen it you should.

As I said, anything Gordon-Levitt is in is appointment watching for me lately. Plus, I have always enjoyed Deschanel's work - and Moretz, though not in a ton of things, has done well in her outings as well.

I loved the way the story was told, including the small graphic breaks that they had in place. I liked that there were two different tones to the movie - the light and fluffy and the dark and dreary. Just like life.

Grade: