500 Days of Summer: Oh, Zooey D!

It's awful hard for me to dislike a character played by indie quirk queen Zooey Deschanel. Like a softer and saner Fairuza Balk, Deschanel always lends an intriguing presence as the (more often than not) object of affection, which people either like or hate. Though her best mainstream effort, in my opinion, was 2003's Elf (leading roles in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 2005, The Happening, 2008, or Yes Man, 2008 all failed to do anything for her) she's best utilized in roles like The Good Girl (2002), All the Real Girls (2003), and she's certainly the most redeeming quality of quirky nonsense like Gigantic (2008).

So needless to say, I was surprised when I found myself cursing the existence of Deschanel's character, Summer Finn, when I recently caught music video director Marc Webb's feature film debut, (500) Days of Summer. A film documenting the ups and downs of a relationship that never quite gets off the ground, the film recounts through the eyes of its protagonist, Tom Hansen, (an excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt, his best performance since Mysterious Skin, 2004---though I am a bit irritated to see he is in the new G.I. Joe bullshit movie starring Channing "Automaton" Tatum) a back and forth explanation of what and why things didn't work between himself and a young woman he was foolish enough to fall in love with. Having a degree in architecture, Tom never quite utilized his potential, working in a dead end job for a greeting card company. When Summer Finn begins as a new assistant for his boss, Tom is immediately taken by her beauty and unique demeanor. Summer, finding Tom interesting, initiates a relationship, though warning him several times along the way that she isn't looking for anything serious. As you can imagine, Tom doesn't take heed of her warnings and lets his heart get pulverized through the proverbial meat grinder. What sounds like a typical or formulaic film turns out to be a whimsical and astoundingly melancholic film. Gordon-Levitt isn't made out to be a fool--he's got plenty of reasons to believe feelings could be mutual at first. But when all the warning signs develop of Summer distancing herself from him, one can't help but feel his anguish and judge Ms. Deschanel's character for passively leading him on. An utter act of cruelty has Deschanel inviting him to a party after they had stopped contact for some time, only to have Tom discover at her party that she's become engaged to someone in the interim. What seems to be an exercise in the foolish masochism of the romantically inclined (the interpretation of the several references of The Graduate, 1967, are a gorgeous touch) ends up ending on at least a lighter note. In a world rife with undeserving assholes, it's difficult watching a genuinely decent guy getting kicked to the curb (even if this is a heterosexually oriented film). (500) Days of Summer is definitely a film that belongs and owes much of its likeability to Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Ms. Deschanel, unfortunately, is playing a character that may be understandable, but is hard to like (even though many of us should be lucky enough to relate to both of them). However, kudos to Webb for giving us a Deschanel that's a bit more dynamic than the average indie quirky girl she's usually cast as. One excellent, umm, post-coital scene, has Gordon-Levitt dancing around on the streets in a musical number, a scene compared to something out of Fellini, a nice moment in a film that plays like a melancholy poem about the devastation of unrequited love. A bittersweet little film that runs through a gamut of emotions, (500) Days of Summer is one of the more realistic films I've seen dealing with love and how we may or may not find it. It's not the feel good movie of the summer, but it maintains a feeling of hope while not insulting your intelligence---and that's a lot to ask from a film, let alone life.