So I finally got around to watching the hit romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer with Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. While this is definitely not a traditional romantic comedy, I really did enjoy watching it. At the very beginning of the film we are told that this is not a love story, but just a story of boy meets girl. Throughout the whole movie, we know what happens to the relationship between the two leads, but we get to watch to find out exactly what led to their break up. It is an interesting story telling technique used in that we know what the conclusion is, but as the audience we get to watch how the relationship ended up that way. You would think that this would make it difficult to enjoy the story and watching these two characters meet and interact as their love grows, but I still found myself interested in their story and rooting for this couple, despite the known ending. The movie had many clever and funny scenes throughout, yet still contained a dark tone by knowing about the end of the relationship and switching from the lighter and happier times to the eventual ending result of our devastated male lead.
I really liked the idea of this story because it was so different from every other chick flick that is normally seen. Instead of showing us a typical boy meets girl, faces an obstacle together, and then fall in love and live happily every after scenario, this movie simply shows us a relationship beginning as well as end. Most of our lives are not about a final conclusion and relationships end all of the time. I liked this movie because it gives us a glimpse in the life of the main character. Just because this relationship ended does not mean it is a story that is not worth telling. Not all stories have happy endings or profound meanings on our lives. This movie simply shows us a period in the life of a person and the girl he dated for 500 days. Their love was real, but it just ran its course and the characters move on.
The story kind of reminded me of our moment of being essays that we wrote a couple of weeks ago. It simply shows us a series of moments in a man's life where he fell in love. Even though their love ended and they went their own ways, their brief love story is worth watching because it is an aspect of their lives. Using this approach, 500 Days of Summer had a very real emotion as it simply captured a brief time in life. Most things in our lives eventually end, but that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy them while we can.
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Elizabeth:
ReplyDeleteSince I watched 500 Days of Summer my opinion has swayed and I really enjoyed reading your post about the movie.
I watched the movie on the 14-hour plane ride home from Spain so I was a huge ball of sleep deprivation and homesickness. I have no idea how much or how little that affected my outtake on the film, but I do think it may have played an integral role in my viewing of the film.
Quick caveat: when do I use film and when do I use movie? I'm taking a film class right now and I got quite a few points off my last test for using the word "film" instead of "screenplay". I understand that they're different words so they must be slightly different, but I just don't get it all.
Anyway--I enjoyed the film; it frustrated me, but I decided that that was OK.
Summer really irked me for most of the film, but that was OK, too.
I like your comment at the end of the post, which says that their love is real. I do think their love was real, but it certainly wasn't eternal. They move on. Summer finds new love. And, in the end we see that perhaps he's moving on, as well.
I'm not going to lie- I was really torn by the scene in which the new girl says her name is Autumn. It was almost profound, but maybe cliché. I still cannot decide.
Despite my ambiguous opinion, the movie made me think & that certainly counts for something.