500 Days of Summer 2009

        After It looks as if she's left his life for good this time, Tom Hansen reflects back on the just over one year ago that he knew Summer Finn.  For Tom, it was love at first sight when she walked into the greeting card company where he worked.  She had a new job as the administrative assistant.  Soon, Tom knew that Summer was the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Although Summer said she did not believe in relationships or boyfriends, real life will always ultimately always seem to get in the way?  Tom and Summer became more than just friends.  Through the trials and tribulations of Tom and Summer's so-called relationship, Tom could always count on the advice of his two best friends, McKenzie and Paul.  It is Tom's adolescent sister, Rachel, who is his voice of reason.  After all is said and done, Tom is the one who ultimately has to make the choice to listen or not.  4* (I really liked this movie)

     At the start of the movie it states that “This is not a love story” and it really is not?  It’s a story about Tom and Summer.  She doesn’t want a serious relationship and she states that this is her goal for their friendship.  But Tom totally falls in love with Summer.  The movie is about how a man with an obsessive personality deals with loss in his life.  The movie accents Tom’s obsession running into reality.  When Summer eventually ended the friendship with him, his whole world collapsed.  It is because he could only think about her as his dream girl and not about her as a real person.  The question is, can he ever get over her and pull his life back together?  That might sound very depressing and there is plenty of that in this film!!  It shifts back and forth between the 500 days that he is with her.  There’s also romance and some laughs.  Obviously that means this movie isn’t for everyone because a lot of people won’t enjoy a story like this but it is worthwhile to see.  4* (I really liked this movie)

95 min, Comedy directed by Marc Webb and written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber with Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Grace Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Patricia Belcher, Rachel Boston, Minka Kelly, Charles Walker, Ian Reed Kesler, Darryl Alan Reed, Vante Rodriguez, Yvette Nicole Brown, Nicloe Vicius.

Note:  Imdb 7.7* out of 10* with 576,566 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 85% with 233 critic reviews 84% with 250,000+ audience scores, Common Sense Media S. Jhoanna Robledo, 4* out of 5* age 14+, Roger Ebert 4*, Amazon 4.6* out of 5* with 3950 reviews, Metacritic 76 out of 100 with 36 critic reviews 8.1* out of 10* with 870 user scores.

Special Note:  According to the DVD commentary, one of the film's writers estimates that 75% of the film actually happened to him?  During the flashback to Summer's job selling ice cream, Tom can be seen waiting in line.  The film's blue-centric color scheme was done to bring out Zooey Deschanel’s eyes.  Around the time of the movie's release, director Marc Web shot a short video for the Internet, which featured Zooey Deschanel as Sid Vicious and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Nancy Spungen.  This was a referenced in a conversation in this movie.  

Mistakes:  On day 303 early in the film, Tom receives an e-mail from Summer that she can't meet him that week and hopes that means he's ready to be friends.  The e-mail is dated May 7, 2008.  On Day 500, Tom awaits an interview and the narrator says it was May 23.  This is inconsistent with the rest of the movie which seems to be set in 2006 and early 2007.  Tom and Rachel are shown playing on a Nintendo Wii game console on day 11.  Near the end of the film, the narrator says day 500 is Wednesday, May 23.  The last time May 23 was a Wednesday was in 2007.  Counting back, this means day 11 would have been January 18, 2006.  The Nintendo Wii was not released until November 19, 2006.  At the beginning, Day 8 during the office party Tom asks Summer about moving "here" and how long she has been “here."  She answers "since Saturday" which doesn't make sense as it is Day 8 since they met which is more than a week.