500 Days of Summer

It’s hard not to fall in love with 500 Days of Summer … even if the movie does everything it possibly can to remind you that it is not a love story. Directed by Marc Webb, 500 Days of Summer chronicles the romantic lifespan shared by Tom and Summer, two coworkers at a greeting card company who meet, date, fall in love and then … well, why spoil it. Rather than use a straightforward story line to tell us how the lives of Tom and Summer intertwine, the film uses a sort of cinematic roulette wheel for its narrative: Numbers from 1 to 500 spin on the screen and we see what happened on the day that comes up when the numbers stop. One day we see them blissfully staring into each others’ eyes and – spin the wheel – the next time we see them it’s months later and they are ready to tear each others’ eyes out. It takes a little while to get used to the pacing such a device sets for the story, but the scenes are so delicately layered against each other that you’re able to sit back and get a much fuller impression of the ups and downs of their romance than you would in a more traditional style.