‘(500) Days of Summer’ not next ‘Garden State’

“(500) Days of Summer”
DIRECTED BY: Marc Webb
STARRING: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel
RATED: PG-13
SHOWING: Area Theaters

It takes some balls to create a story of rejection. Making a film about a failed relationship is a sign that the creators have at least one toe fully submerged in reality. But in the case of “(500) Days of Summer,” that’s just about where the refreshing realism ends.
It seemed like all the cards were in order for this to be the next “Garden State:” pretty leading lady Zooey Deschanel (check), sitcom star gone emo Joseph Gordon-Levitt (check), tender subject matter with plenty of oddball film techniques (check). But after the opening credits, where a disclaimer notes that this is purely a work of fiction, resemblances to reality are purely coincidental (yada yada) and then directs the message to someone named “Jenny Beckman … [explicative],” the film takes a turn for the tame.
The rejecter in “(500) Days of Summer” is Summer, played by Deschanel, who is exquisitely styled in a variety of old-fashioned dresses and hyper-feminine blouses. The rejected is Levitt’s Tom, a romantic wannabe architect working a so-schmaltzy-it’s-ironic job as a greeting card writer. He believes in love; she doesn’t (supporting character McKenzie points out that “She’s a dude!” in one of the film’s better moments of dialogue). To be cynical or not to be cynical is the film’s main question, but it doesn’t give much fodder for finding the answer.
Instead, the film spends most of its energy on experimental techniques with structure, graphics and chronology, some of which are commendable and some of which are distracting. Time is represented by a sketch of trees outside a building, its colors fading as the seasons change. At one point the screen splits into two different scenes, one to cover reality and the other expectation. Levitt’s character even finds himself in a scene from “The Seventh Seal.”
While those are smart, creative ways to use allusion and visual deconstruction to further the story, a couple artistic techniques simply fell flat. In a completely prudish representation of a sex scene, the film shows Tom dancing in the street with strangers and cartoon birds. Too bad that already happened in “40 Year Old Virgin” and plays out like a bad scene from “Enchanted.”
Overall, the film has most of its odds-and-ends straight. The soundtrack is primarily Regina Spektor songs, but also has some Pitchfork-generation pleasers like “Bad Kids” by Black Lips. But judging by the “revelations” about love written into the script, the soundtrack should have been tailored for a target demographic of 12-year-olds. Demi Lovato anyone?
The writing overestimates the relative shock factor of the idea that love isn’t one-dimensional to the point of spelling it out with flamboyant theatrics, making the final result fairly condescending. In one scene, Tom challenges naïve greeting card writers to imagine that what they’re doing just might be phony. The idea that pointing that out is in any way groundbreaking is so off-key that it’s cringe-worthy.
Basically, “(500) Days of Summer” is a sub-par script that was almost impeccably translated to film. While the faces are pretty and the storytelling is creative, “(500) Days of Summer” simply lacks the clever writing that marks an artistic venture’s serendipitous cross with “things as they are.”