Wednesday, September 23, 2009

(500) Days of Summer

In this age of information overload of face book, twitter, cell phones et al, the beauty of this movie lies in the fact that it has a retro feel to it. Los Angles minus Beverly Hills, old buildings, simple dresses, peppy pop numbers and beautiful cinematography is what (500) days of Summer presents you.

Summer, the surreal love of Tom’s life does not want to be anyone’s girlfriend. She wants a tag-free relationship, which, according to her, is only friendship. But to put it in perspective, let me borrow the words of Tom, ‘one doesn’t have shower-sex with their friends!’

A kaleidoscope of memories of Tom’s 500 days of his life with Summer. So we shift from day 353 to Day 11 and back to maybe Day 282. But when did chronological order make sense with nostalgic moments?

Tom believes in love and that she is THE ONE, but Summer just lives the moment. Tom is a greeting card writer, a profession many of us would envy but his heart lies in architecture.
Tom
‘I guess I just figured, why make something disposable like a building when you can make something that last forever, like a greeting card.’

Tom’s quirky friends and precocious little sister are guffaw-inducing and if that is not all, there is Tom’s love for architecture and his talent for sketching. No Auto-Cad there for you but good old pencil sketches of buildings and greeting cards.

There is one specific scene heavily inspired by Annie Hall - the split screen between Expectation and Reality which reminds me of something similar to where Woody Allen shows what he says and what he means in a horizontal split screen.

But 500 days does have a distinct flavor of its own – whether it is the music of The Smiths or arguments about Ringo Starr or having fun shopping at Ikea, watching ‘The Graduate’, this movie reminds us that in this era of action packed flicks, there is still beauty left in a simple love story.

Agreed it is not a classic like ‘Before Sunrise/Sunset’ or Annie Hall but it certainly has its fine moments with its wit and leaves an after-taste of the bitter sweet memories of a relationship gone awry.

2 comments:

White Magpie said...

Worth a dekko then?

White Magpie said...

are you not going to write more?