Another Movie Review: 500 Days of Summer

Warning: Spoilers ahead...
As you all know by now, I am sucker for a romantic movie, and this one just tickled me. It's the story of Tom and Summer, who meet at work one day. And it's basically the opposite of any of the normal romantic comedies you see. Usually, the girl falls for a guy and can't get him out of her head, so she does something zany to make him fall for her. This movie, however, had the guy in that position. Tom is just desperate to fall in love and he thinks Summer's the one. She honest, funny, and totally straightforward with him - she's just not so sure. Partially, I loved this movie because Summer was so well played by Zooey Deschanel. Partially, I was thrilled that Summer was a strong, confident woman, unafraid to be alone and quite enthralled with the world around her. The long and the short of it is that things don't work out, for many reasons. I think most of us have been through that absolutely heart wrenching breakup, and this movie portrayed that really well, as did Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Tom. And, for some reason, the city of Los Angeles plays this lovely, romantic city in this movie. The characters ride the bus and the subway places, sit in parks on hills overlooking a skyline I've never seen, they show they beautiful, old fashioned buildings that I had no idea existed (for the longest time, I was trying to figure out where they were supposed to be!). The cinematography was beautiful, the music was really well done. All the characters were really well played, including the goofy side-kicks. And, in the end, Tom finds that he's just not happy, and that happiness isn't found in a person, it's found in yourself. And there's a cute ending where Tom and Summer become friends again, after enduring a terrible breakup. I know this is all fantasy, not reality, it's a movie, but I thought it was really great. It was quirky, well done and interesting, not too long, beautiful to look at, and wonderfully honest. If you haven't seen this movie, check it out.