Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Tom, greeting-card writer and hopeless romantic, is caught completely off-guard when his girlfriend, Summer, suddenly dumps him. He reflects on their 500 days together to try to figure out where their love affair went sour, and in doing so, Tom rediscovers his true passions in life.
(500) Days of Summer earns standout marks for its non-linear, deconstructionist take on the rom-com genre — its structure (numbered days shuffled out of order), the split-screen 'Expectations vs. Reality' sequence, and its unflinching refusal to deliver a conventional happily-ever-after make it genuinely distinctive. The plot is sharp and emotionally honest, dissecting romantic idealization with unusual rigor for the genre. Novelty is high because the film's voice and formal playfulness — the Hall & Oates dance number, the use of an omniscient narrator, the deliberate breaking of rom-com conventions — feel singular and authored. Acting is solid from Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt but not transformative enough for a 4. Cinematography is competent and occasionally inventive but not a visual landmark. The ending is bittersweet and thematically consistent but slightly too neat with the 'Autumn' coda, keeping it from a 4.