500 Days of Summer

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t. When Tom meets Summer, he knows instantly that there is something special about her. He goes after her wanting to be more, while Summer just wants to keep things casual. He is blindsided when she dumps him. He shifts back in forth through different periods of their 500 days together trying to find out where everything went wrong. He reflects on the good and the bad times to which ultimately restores his faith in love and helps him rediscover his true passion in life, architecture. Summer has moved on finding true love that she once never believed in, while Tom truly lets go of Summer by meeting a girl named Autumn at an interview.

I loved this film. The thing that I think gave this film a lot of character was the music that was played and how they used it. Two scenes that I loved the most were when he describes different physical traits about her, one good and the other bad. The first scene, he talks to the camera breaking the fourth wall. After he describes the traits that he loves about her, he references a song that starts playing, but the song in non-diegetic. The second, he again breaks the fourth wall and describes the same physical traits, but in an insulting manner. At the end the same song plays, but it cuts to a shot of him standing on a bus and the music become diegetic as it is now playing through his headphones. The only thing that I thought that the film could have done without would be the scenes where Paul, Vance, and McKenzie are being interviewed about their opinions on love. I’m not sure if I see the point or reason behind those scenes, but I sure that the director wanted them there for some reason or purpose.