500 Days of Summer [Sundance 09]

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

I agree with Sillias.

Marquee?

[samsong]

i'm with mod insofar that i too am ambivalent about the film, though i lean more towards liking it because of the shameless fetishizing of zooey deschanel, levitt's performance, and the soundtrack.  (someone described the soundtrack as being like a mix you'd make for a friend when they're bummed out, a pretty perfect summation.  the smiths + hall and oates = win)  this is the movie garden state wanted to be, and though it isn't much better, it's certainly much more pleasant to sit through.  some very earnest moments and pretty funny in spots, and i'm not talking about the do-we-really-need-another-one parody of bergman, but ultimately it's saccharine and naive.  the ending is a complete misstep.

[Stefen]

I always wait for samsong's thoughts.

[polkablues]

the ending is a complete misstep.

I disagree. I think the ending is actually more complex and subversive than it seems at first glance. There was the bit of narration in the movie about how Tom's perception of true love is based on "a complete misinterpretation of the ending of The Graduate." And the ending of 500 Days of Summer works the same way. Initially, it feels like a standard, happy, boy-gets-the-girl-he's-supposed-to-be-with ending, but really what it says is that he's learned nothing from his experience and he's doomed to repeat the whole thing all over again. What the movie did best throughout was working with romantic comedy cliches and then flipping them on their head, and the ending is a great example of that.

[samsong]

while your reading of it is convincing enough, i can't give the film that credit because the notion of repeating one's mistakes isn't a particularly light one--show me a film that treats it as such and i'll show you a mediocre movie--and the ending of 500 days of summer is frivolous, more cloying whimsy than meaningful.  it strikes me as being extremely difficult (maybe even impossible) for an ending that plays out so much like a cliche itself to be subversive given the tone of the rest of the movie, earnest as it is "clever".  a film that more successfully and poignantly flips the genre conventions in a more substantive and subversive manner is eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.  there's a complex ending, one that both elates in its romantic flightiness but also has a deep melancholy because of the darker possibilities that are in store for the characters. 

for the ending to work as you described, i think there needs to be more to it than a cheeky look into the lens and a prophetic reference to the graduate.

[polkablues]

True. And honestly, I'm not convinced that the filmmakers actually intended the ending to be read the way that I interpreted it. But I like it either way.

[JG]

also, the girl at the end would've needed to be way hotter..

i thought it was a cute movie.

[Gamblour.]

I really liked this film, but I think if I sat through it again, it's tricks and wit wouldn't work on me so much. When it's cliche, it does at least try to handle it a bit differently. And I was honestly surprised and a bit impressed by the visual motifs maintained throughout, like the "expectations/reality" split screen which so easily could have failed but it ended up being fun to watch and moved the story forward in several ways.

This movie was really dedicated to the narrative and Gordon-Levitt's character, and I think that's why it works. Even the dancing in the street post-sex scene, which is so completely similar to (and nearly ripping off, right down to a cartoon bird) Enchanted and maybe even The Wackness, even that scene was saved by him getting into the elevator and the cutting to him getting out at a later point in the relationship. It's always in context of the highs/lows, and it doesn't let that dance number stand as a sort of centerpiece, but let's it get enveloped into the stylized narrative fabric.

The actors, too, are a HUGE reason why this movie worked. It's not Braff stinking up the joint or NatPo ugly-cry-facing her way through a scene. JGL and ZoDe were both amazing, and they were the best onscreen couple I've seen since Away We Go. That being said, Summer gets the short end of the stick by essentially having very paper-thin motivation. Even then, it could just be whittled down to the fact that she's just a flake. And I don't think that's fair to the character to not really understand her that much, BUT THEN AGAIN this is from JGL's POV and it could just be argued that we're as much in the dark as he is.

The little sister character is another example of something that could've failed but didn't. She was so close to being over the top or unbelievable, but her precocious wisdom come off as charming and funny and not annoying at all. I think it's that instead of making another kid appear beyond their years, they gave her all of the good advice and made her have lines about vodka and PMS and pussy. They finally got it right, it's the first time I've not been annoyed by a kid on film in a LONG time.

This movie is incredible in that it ultimately works when it could've so easily been a dumb mess, another Garden State. I walked out feeling very happy, which is more than I can say about every other romcom out there, indie or otherwise.

[Stefen]

Everytime I see that clip of that scene about the Smiths, I cringe.

I hope I'm not getting too old for this shit.

[I Love a Magician]

while your reading of it is convincing enough, i can't give the film that credit because the notion of repeating one's mistakes isn't a particularly light one--show me a film that treats it as such and i'll show you a mediocre movie--and the ending of 500 days of summer is frivolous, more cloying whimsy than meaningful.  it strikes me as being extremely difficult (maybe even impossible) for an ending that plays out so much like a cliche itself to be subversive given the tone of the rest of the movie, earnest as it is "clever".  a film that more successfully and poignantly flips the genre conventions in a more substantive and subversive manner is eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.  there's a complex ending, one that both elates in its romantic flightiness but also has a deep melancholy because of the darker possibilities that are in store for the characters. 

for the ending to work as you described, i think there needs to be more to it than a cheeky look into the lens and a prophetic reference to the graduate.

(spoilers)

i agree with polka that it's not as sappy as it first appears. i'm not sure if he's really learned anything by the end of the movie. he gives that speech about pop songs and greeting cards being bullshit, then summer tells him that she finally came around and knew that her new dude was The One which just made him go back to his old ways. the (#) thing rolling back to (1) reminded me of the ending of eternal sunshine in that it's a happy moment masking that he's bound to repeat himself.

[modage]

i actually thought garden state was better than this.  is that wrong?

[SiliasRuby]

Yes.

[Gamblour.]

i actually thought garden state was better than this.  is that wrong?

You'd need a few really good reasons.

[The Perineum Falcon]

is everyone already over this movie, or what?

I just saw it, and don't really feel the need to waste a lot of words on it at this point. Maybe later.

As summation, I will use the last two lines of the film followed by my immediate and impulsive reaction:

(ahem)

"Hi, my name's Tom. What's yours?"

"Autumn." (smile)

UGH.

[Kal]

People who have negative shit to say about this movie should not say anything at all unless they write something better. If its so bad and predictable it shouldn't be that hard to top.