MyRating: YYYYDirector: Mark Webb
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Minka Kelly
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sexual material and language
US Gross: US$ 32.4 Million
Worldwide Gross: US$ 58.7 Million
LOVE is the most wonderful thing in the world. We have heard this so many times. Hundreds, maybe thousands of time. But, do you believe it is fate that brings you to your soul mate? Fate in the sense that everybody is destined to be with (a particular) someone in his or her life? And that (particular) someone has been arranged for you since you are in your mother's womb, and your search will never end until you find the right "one"? Well, that is the subject of an endless discussion for a very long time. Some people believe that and some people don't. But, Tom believes it.
Tom Hansen (Gordon-Levitt) believes that his right "one" is yet to come. When he meets with Summer Finn (Deschanel) in his office, where he works as a greeting card writer and Summer just joins the company as his boss' new assistant, Tom knows almost immediately that he has finally found the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with. Summer is not just an ordinary girl. She has something in her that always attracts the attentions of men since her very young age. Something more than beauty. But she doesn't believe in love and relationships, since her parents were divorce. She believes that love is not something to be taken seriously at.
But as their relationship grows closer, Tom and Summer become more than just friends. It turns into a romantic and intimate one. And since Summer doesn't want to tag any label on their relationship, while on the other side Tom wants a stable one, they soon moves into an uncertain and awkward relationship. The more they go, the shaky it becomes. And Tom finds himself not in the battle of winning Summer's heart anymore, but he is in the battle of maintaining her heart, before the girl and her love for him fly away.
This is a very good movie with a charming story, funny at times. A feel good and a feel sad story at the same time. The plot is told in a nonlinear way, as Tom remembers his 500 days he spent together with Summer, starts from day 500, back to day 1, and jumps to another day in the middle, then back and forth again continuously. However, the script was beautifully and intelligently written, and the direction was clever, as the story flowed smoothly and did not loose its grips at all even with its unique way of storytelling.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are blossoms as the two leads. They did a very good job and had a great chemistry together. Joseph was perfectly cast as Tom, a young man who dreams to become an architect but end up working as a greeting card writer. He was good in portraying his somewhat naive and neurosis attitudes towards love. While Zooey also hit the mark with her acting as Summer. The way she shows her almost blank and empty face, which is shown thru her eyes, was just perfect as the distant and emotionless Summer. I think she really-really succeeded in portraying her inability to feel love character, while at the same time made her character look adorable. The relationship of Tom and Summer is also romantic at times, and felt distant at the other times, the way the script wanted it be.
The songs and the music scores are great in coloring the tone of the film. The scenes are also effective. One of them is the scene that showing the "Expectations vs. Reality" of Tom when he visits Summer's apartment. That is a very good scene. And the final scene, when Tom meets Autumn for the first time, is just a brilliant way to end the movie. It surely leaves warm feelings in our hearts.
As for the soul mate's fate, I personally do not believe in one. I believe that everything in our lives (including our love one) is a choice. We do not find our soul mates because fate or destiny brings us to him or her, but it's simply because of our choice (if we cannot say that as a coincidence). If we start our lives all over again and we choose a slightly different path, we may end up with another person, and we may run another story in our lives, for better or for worse. But, that's the mystery of life, isn't it? I guess we will never know. We just have to be grateful for the one that we have. (MJ)
