500 Days of Summer (2009)

Twenty-somethings in love. Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meet at work. Although he studied architecture in college, he is now writing greeting cards. She is the boss's new assistant who Tom immediately falls for. After days of quietly pining for her, he finally has a chance to connect with her at a karaoke bar office party where a lot of alcohol is consumed.

Although there is a spark between them, she mentions right away that she is not looking for anything serious. We watch the 500-day romance flourish and flounder as they frolic and play. She is one of those girls that simply perplexes a guy. She kisses him in the copier room at work then turns away just as unexpectedly to leave him wondering what it all means. This new romance makes Tom very happy and a little crazy. Isn't that always the downside of love? The uncertainty of it all is maddening.

We watch them at the movies watching the final scene of The Graduate, where Ben (Dustin Hoffman) has rescued Elaine (Katherine Ross) from the wrong marriage. They run out of the church, giddy and carefree. While sitting in the back of a bus their expressions of laughter flatten to worried introspection. What have they just done?

Summer is tearful as she watches this. Outside with Tom afterwards, she says she is tired and wants to go home. She is obviously pulling away from Tom. He does not really get this and convinces her to go with him for pancakes. She goes, but breaks up with him without eating a bite. He has not seen this coming and leaves in total desparation...returns home to binge-drink his way through heartbreak. Summer leaves her job at the greeting card company and Tom does not adjust well.

Months later, he runs into Summer at a wedding. They hang out together throughout the evening and she dances with him. The fun they have together implies to Tom a reunion of sorts. Summer invites him to a party she is hosting. He goes there with hope for a renewed romance. The film shows his time at the party in split screen with his expectations on one side and reality on the other. On one side she greets him with a kiss on the lips...the reality side shows a friendly hug. The expectation side shows her unwrapping the small gift with obvious heartfelt appreciation for the copy of the book called The Architecture of Happiness...the other side of the screen shows Summer awkwardly opening the gift with little fanfare and quickly moving on to other guests.

When someone asks him what he does, Summer chimes in with "He could be a great architect if he wanted to." Tom has no choice but address the humiliating moment with irony. "Why make something disposable like a building when you can make something everlasting like a greeting card." The party is one disappointing moment after the next until he observes her showing a girlfriend the diamond ring on her left hand. He nearly faints with the shock of that and quickly exits the party. Days later he impulsively walks out of a meeting at the job and quit on the spot.

Tom begins to move himself in a new direction as he pulls out the architecture books he once loved. On the 500th day after meeting Summer, he sits on his favorite park bench. She speaks to him from nearby where she seems to have been waiting for him to appear. They have both grown a lot in the time since their break-up. Both are subdued as they talk, but he speaks up to let her know that he still does not understand how a girl who claimed to not want anything serious, ended up married to somebody else.

He now claims to have renounced any belief in true love, soulmates, or other romantic foolishness that he once thrived on. She was the practical one who had brushed aside all of that by the time they had first met. She tells him that she was wrong. "I just woke up one day and I knew with him what I was never sure of with you." While sitting in a deli one day reading Dorian Grey, a guy started talking to her about the book. It just happened and it was meant to be.

These encounters between former lovers are common. It's most difficult for the one who has not moved on to a new relationship. Tom does go on to find his own destiny. The movie leaves us rooting for him anyway. It's all a little too neat, but the story is universal. Zooey Deschanel's cuteness is a bit much for me, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt has classic movie star presence that we will be seeing a lot more of in future movies.