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(500) Days of Summer

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Lise:
Thanks, LittleKey, FINALLY someone who's actually seen the movie before bashing it. Like what I said in the topic, the film is considered "indie" and has an indie-feel to it, but it is not pretentious or trite crap like that review accuses it of being because it was based on the real-life experiences of the writer. You might interpret the story then as similar to "every single boring relationship you and I ever had," but I call that realism, and that's fresh air when it comes to the genre. If you've been in a one-sided relationship, chances are you can relate to the story in 500 days of Summer. The movie was hardly boring, and the audience shared plenty of laughs when I watched it. FYI, the audience wasn't full of hipsters either, the moviegoers were a diverse bunch.

I will admit that prior to watching the film, I thought it'd be just another hipster movie like Zooey Deschanel's previous "Gigantic" that tried too hard to be overly quirky, but it is much, much better.

This comment sums up my feelings about The Stranger's review: "You've completely missed the point of this film by railing against its indie quirkiness. Playing the 'Garden State' card? Fucking yawn. This film was a smart, artful gem that deserves better treatment than this."

PS: I don't like the Smiths, either.

knives:
I saw it and didn't like it. Waste of money. I will agree it is no where near as bad as Gigantic, or really a bad movie. Just terribly bland in that hipster, it is hipster, way. It may be inspired by real life events, can't be completely true to them I would have to believe, but it just comes off as someone trying really hard to make a modern Annie Hall, but lacking charm or more importantly sincerity. It's too wink wink to be enjoyable, and what else does this film have to offer beyond enjoyability?

scarred:
I think I'm gonna rent it. Bollocks to Seattle!

Yunior:
This film pulled out every cinema-gimmick imaginable, and I'm really torn as to whether any of it really paid off. The most obvious is the discontinuity of the film: on one hand, entirely disorientating for the viewer; on the other, recreates that feeling of pouring over memories after a break-up, letting Tom edit out and distort Summer's good and bad moments. Or the reality/expectations split screen, which was so spot-on in terms of intent, but not anywhere near the mark in terms of execution. A few gimmicks that absolutely flunked in my book -- kid-sister love guru? documentary-style interviews with the characters about their thoughts on love? interpolative French short? -- and then just the one gimmick, the dance sequence, which charms me to no end. But even for all the student-filmy-ness of this movie, I still really found it enjoyable -- funny, thoughtful, and certainly willing to take risks.

As far as this whole 'indie' thing goes (good God when did being a hipster become such a crime, I mean Jeez), I sort of found it refreshing that all the hipster qualities it's accused of having serve the purpose of addressing the bizarre-and-redonkulous mating ritual that is The Comparing of Stuff We Like. Kid-sister points out, I think, relatively early on in the film, just 'cause Summer likes all the same hipster bullshit Tom likes means next to nothing in terms of long-term compatibility. Tom is, at this stage, already shaking with infatuation, and his love for Summer manifests itself out of dumb hipster bullshit they have in common, as opposed to anything meaningful (life experiences, goals, erwhatever). Summer, as a character (portrayed within the confines of Tom's memories), is reduced from a person to a collection of things she likes -- Tom, so steeped in his desire of finding the One (and also probably very set in his expectations of what his One is like), elevates her to this status of 'perfection' based on perfunctory common interests and, in that same vein, denies her the complexity of being a girl who, in the long-run, may not be able to make Tom happy.

Honestly, I was initially really irritated with this film's portrayal of Summer, which is so bare-bones in comparison to Tom's. But with a few hours distance I started to see that Summer is two-dimensional and superficial because that is how Tom sees her, too.

I forgot what else I had to say about this movie! This is gonna have to do for now, 'cause I am sleepy.

KvP:
Well by the sound of it whoever was supposed to have marketed this film really dropped the ball, but that might have been on purpose. Who would rather see a deconstruction of indie romance than a romcom (besides us, I mean)? I'd heard a lot that the "romance" in this film is actually kind of realistic and that it kind of takes shots at the sorts of characters that Zooey Deschanel always plays. Besides, I like JG Levitt. Maybe I'll go see it.

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