Reviews by Matt

As someone who follows the movie industry, I keep up with just about every bit of news that comes out. A big part of the year is the Sundance Film Festival. The big movie to come out of the last Sundance was “(500) Days of Summer.”

The opening voiceover warns you that while this is the story of boy meets girl, it is not a love story. Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) met Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) when she came to work at his office. He immediately fell in love with her. She was not as quick to return the feelings. The movie is about the 500 days of their relationship.

I’m going to keep this short and sweet because it is sweltering in my room and the A/C in the house is broken. The acting is amazing and both leads do a superb job and continue to show why they are indie movie superstars. What I loved the most was not the acting, directing or even the great soundtrack. What I loved the most was the editing.

The story is not told in chorological order. It cuts between different days in their relationship: some good and some bad. Title cards tell you what day of Summer it is. The movie opens with them broken up, somewhere around day 300. He is brokenhearted and vows to get her back. Then it is day 1 when he first sees her. It cuts back and forth like this for most of the movie. Tom recalls all the things he loves about her and the things they did together. The audience can slowly see the relationship fall apart while Tom cannot.

This is one of those movies I cannot wait to see again. It is truly a great film and its going to take a lot for it not to be on my top 10 list when the year is over. This is a movie you could wait for the DVD to see, but why would you? It is not everywhere yet, but do whatever you have to do to see this.


9 out of 10
Rated PG-13 for sexual material and language
95 min