(500) DAYS OF SUMMER

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't.

Directed by: Marc Webb
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual material and language.
Runtime: 95 min

Unless your heart is never broken by a girl, or you are not the sort of girl who has a heart to treat an ordinary guy as cruel (but warm) as possible, this movie will not resonate into you. In the spirit of smart rom-com of Annie Hall, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, this film is surprisingly believable. Although told in a non-linear structure, it is not difficult to follow. Like this year's District 9, this film defies the usual template for a successful summer movie. This is Annie Hall of the 21st century with strong emphasis on quirkiness and indie music as the soundtrack.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom and Zooey Deschanel as Summer are the next Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in between sunset and sunrise. They are real everyday people, not some over glowed Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn in some over glowed relationship.

The premise is very simple, Tom believe in true love while Summer believe in the opposite. They get to know each other. They were in love and at one point, the love ended. What seems to be a cliche formula can be presented in a new way by Mark Webb. Don't hope for a nice ride to the sunset for this film, just expect a character walking limping in the sunset after being beaten by hard truth.

Every guy can relate to Tom, he's the ordinary boy next door who wants to get a girl like Summer but for some reason, he just can't have her. The rest is realistic and believable, it is a love story everyone can relate to from Europe to Indonesia. This is the story of a search for one true love and sometimes in romance we believe what we want to believe. Decorated with so many nice songs (well, nice or not depend on your taste actually) and imaginative dance sequence picked from Bollywood movie, you'll never stop smiling after watch this one.

But there is one flaw, this film doesn't explain why they broke up. I think it is important that this explanation exist instead of all the sudden they just broke up and we have to guess why. But hey, perhaps it is not important why they broke up, perhaps the story is about relationship for the hopelessly romantic.

In the age of CGI and 3-D attack, 500 Days of Summer is really refreshing, charming, original, simple but also smart. It is a living proof that a simple story can be made as a good movie.