“500 Days of Summer”, directed by Marc Webb, is not your typical love story because there is no love story to tell. It’s about a boy, Tom Hansen, played by Joseph Gordan-Levitt, who meets a girl, Summer Finn ,played by Zooey Deschanel, and the summer they spent together: dating, being friends with benefits, or whatever their so called “label” was; until the day Summer breaks up with Hansen, and ends their fling. So what’s the story? The story is about Tom, and his summer with summer. Sound appealing?
“The movie was cute,” said Aileen Shotzberger, sophomore graphic design major, said. “I liked it.”
“It was cute,” Sarah Rocco, sophomore chemistry major, said, “But I wouldn’t buy it.”
However, Diane Gapinski, junior elementary education major, said, “It was definitely a good movie, I would watch it again.”
“500 Days of Summer” is your classic Sundance film; it had its montages, its various types of music and its artsy moments. It was a film made up of moments: funny, romantic, sad. The plot was good, the story was good, writing, acting, camera angles were all good; but it wasn’t a movie that left the people excited or chatty, only with a smile.
“It was your typical indie movie,” said Neil Gogno, undeclared sophomore, said. “But it was well done.”
The film jumped from the end of the summer, to the beginning, and vice versa throughout the entire film; but it did it in a way that was understandable and worked for the movie. It took the viewer through each phase of a break up and how Tom handled it. Part of the story was that Tom’s character believed in fate and true love and Summer didn’t. Later in the movie both characters begin to second guess themselves.
” I also liked how the guy wrestled with the concept of fate and love,” Gogno said. “He acknowledges the way movies and books portray romance in a completely unrealistic way that than affect the way we see it in our lives.”
That perception is what conflict not only Tom faces but also Summer’s perception.
The perceptions of the two characters and how they have change bring about and unusual ending that wasn’t necessarily expected.
“I liked how the movie wasn’t your typical ending,” Gapinski said
“It was something that you wouldn’t typically expect for an ending, but following along with the movie, I wasn’t surprised,” Rocco said.
Walking out of the theater, people would talk about favorite scenes, but also how the ending didn’t finish in the love story ending. The film was an overall a good movie, it’s not the next “Little Miss Sunshine” but it does have its own flair. With all the romance, and the lack of romance in the movie, you will leave the theater with a smile.
This indie film is in select theatres, but can be watched at the Byrn Mawr Film Institute, on Lancaster Ave. Bring your student id for the student discount and you will be able to watch the cute “500 Days of Summer” and see for yourself how the movie can make you giggle and smile.
