This is not a love story. This is a story about love. ((500) Days of Summer (DVD))

Member Name: aylawarner

Product:	(500) Days of Summer (DVD)
Date:	12/10/09 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Brilliant main cast, great new spin on a love story

Disadvantages: Quite miserable and a little odd

Day 488 Tom is trying to heal a broken heart after just being dumped by the beautiful Summer who he thought was the love of his life. Jumping back to day 1, Tom fell in love with Summer as soon as he set eyes on her and knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But the care-free Summer doesn't believe in love and commitment but only in having fun. With both Tom and Summer having different reasons, they soon become more than friends in a whirlwind romance, until it comes to a crashing end.

~ Cast ~
Tom - Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Summer - Zooey Deschanel
McKenzie - Geoffrey Arend
Paul - Matthew Gray Gubler
Rachel - Chloe Moretz

The film starts off on day 488, at the end of Tom and Summer's relationship, and then plays back through some of their time together. The number of days into their relationship is shown on the screen before each scene but this tended to jump around quite a bit so it did get a little confusing of what stage they were at in their relationship. From the very beginning we know that the relationship isn't going to end well and I found that this put a dampner on the movie which had a negative effect as I knew there wasn't going to be a happy ending.

Zooey Deschanel was the perfect person to play the role of Summer. Although not instantly beautiful, she has this certain quality about her which makes her beautiful and she seems very girly, sweet and floaty, and she just reminds you of the summer. She is also a little odd which makes her even more endearing.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt was brilliant as the heartbroken boyfriend - a cheeky, smiley and happy personality when he was in love, and a miserable, downtrodden and dishevelled look when he had been dumped. The film tended to give off the emotions that Tom was feeling with a springy and bubbly feeling when he was happy and a sad and miserable feeling when he was upset.

The supporting cast were nothing particularly special especially Matthew Gray Gubler who I love in Criminal Minds but he seemed to be no different in this role at all, when it should have been a completely different character. Chloe Moretz was probably the best out of the supporting cast who played Rachel, Tom's younger and very mature sister who gave him advice when he most needed it.

There were a few strange moments in the film which I suppose were meant to be a metaphor showing the characters' feelings but I just found these to be very weird and unnecessary.

The film isn't meant to be a comedy but from the trailers I'd got the impression that it was going to be funny - but it wasn't. The only funny parts were all in the trailers and the rest just felt kind of depressing to be honest. I love rom-coms and I love the idea of happy ending no matter how cliché it might be, so I wasn't impressed with this as it was pretty miserable watching someone get their heart broken. Although I must admit that it was nice to see the woman not wanting to commit and man being dumped for a change!

Despite everyone else seeming to have enjoyed this film, I didn't particularly. It was a great plot and a good new way to show a love story but I just didn't like the fact that there wasn't a happy ending which made it kind of miserable for me.

Running time: 95 minutes
Certificate rating: 12A
Director: Marc Webb

Summary: Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't.