“This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know up front, this is not a love story.”

(500) Days of Summer is not your typical linear storyline; it is beautifully told within a series of events between the 500-day relationship of Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a greeting card copywriter living in Los Angeles and Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel), the newly appointed secretary of Tom’s boss. Chronological order is disregarded from the very beginning, while throughout the movie we travel back and forth in time putting all the pieces together. This misguidance of time gives a fresh face in the calamity of stereotypical romantic comedies seen these past few years. Sometimes we don’t always explore time in a particular order, but as a series of events that have happened the way you want to see them and this film takes you through that journey.

Tom meets Summer when she is introduced as the boss’ assistant and instantly falls in love. The further we venture into their lives the more complicated the relationship becomes. At the beginning of the film, Summer tells Tom that they should stop seeing each other, which comes as more of a shock than he wants to believe. From here, Tom starts his mission to try and win her back, but in the process he learns more about himself and his relationship than he first thought was possible.

Summer is the embodiment of tireless hours that men have struggled over to figure out the ultimate mystery of the world, women. First time film director, Marc Webb, fully understands the emotions of Tom and Summer and takes this small indie story to a more personal level. Most romantic comedies only dream to achieve a sense of real characters that you can relate to, which (500) Days of Summer have captured elegantly. Sometime throughout our lives we have either been a “Summer” or a “Tom” and Webb’s direction places this familiarity on the viewer, which brings you into the situations more personally.

As a music video director, Webb is very familiar with encompassing the right tone of visual elements while complimenting music. Music plays a big role in the film’s emotional settings and it even has a brilliant dance number. Webb uses many interesting filming techniques that he incorporates well as part of the story. The color blue also plays an important role in this film as Webb creates a very playful use of the color planting it into your mind whenever Summer is or is not present. Visually this film is also beautifully shot, with some of the frames feeling almost photographic and monochromatic.

Filled with cute witty dialogue, that could only be found in a post Diablo Cody’s “Juno” era, (500) Days of Summer flirts with your emotions while you root for our hero Tom. Comedic, moving, and musically inclined, (500) Days of Summer hits all the right notes for a fun and clever must see story. Something entirely different comes out of this film and is captured wonderfully by Marc Webb. The movie skews your perception of time and events, but that never takes away from the excellent on screen chemistry of Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel.

If you are looking for a romantic, moral driven, happy ending, you should walk in the other direction. (500) Days of Summer is not your typical Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy, this film requires you to get involved with these characters and join in on this tale of boy meets girl.

I give it: 5/5