Saturday, October 17, 2009

(500) Days of Summer

The last time I was impressed by romantic films was way back in 2004 when Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Before Sunset were released. These films were not your run-of-the-mill love stories. There is none of the overdone plot where a boy and girl meet, fall in love, have sex, fight, break-up, and before the end credits roll swap spit on the streets or airport.

That's a 5-year drought until the release of the terrific (that's a word I will not tire of using) (500) Days of the Summer. A film with the tagline "This is not a love story. It is a story about love.".

The film tells the story of Tom Hanson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) who meet at a greeting card company where they both work. They soon both hang out together - going window shopping for home furniture, watching movies, renting out porn, having sex.

Tom eventually falls in love but Summer doesn't - pointing out in a scene at the start of the film that she does not see herself as someone else's girlfriend. She later backtracks on this in an excellent scene at a park bench, the best in the film if you ask me, acknowledging that true love, soulmates, destiny - things that Tom believed in but she scoffed at - do exist.

The film, presented in a nonlinear narrative, has many wonderful scenes where the characters spew out great dialogue. It also has a pretty good soundtrack featuring songs from The Smiths, Regina Spektor, and Hall & Oates.

It opens Wednesday and I will most likely watch this on the big screen. Now, I need to go hunt for my autumm. But before that, here's the elevator scene transcript which is one of my favorites from the film.

Summer: I love The Smiths.

Tom: [removing his headphones] Sorry?

Summer: I said I love The Smiths. You–you have a good taste in music.

Tom: You like The Smiths?

Summer: Yeah. “To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.” I love ‘em.

[Summer steps off the elevator]

Tom: Holy shit.

13 comments:

DRAKE said...

Sige try kong panoorin yan, although hindi ko gusto ang mga romantic movie pero sige subukan ko yang panoorin!

Ingat bro

wait said...

ill watch that movie if you recommend : )

Skron said...

Anything with Zooey Deschanel (or Emily Deschanel) is always worth watching.

And I like The Smiths as well.

The Scud said...

drake, nyahaha. hindi naman sya cheesy.

The Scud said...

wait, highly recommended yan.

The Scud said...

skron, sama mo na rin si emily blunt. :D

Fine Life Folk said...

Seen the trailer somewhere last week. Interesting. Unconventional, the character of the lead female. You can also check out Man On The Moon (not the one with Jim Carrey, although I'm not sure if that's the title of his movie) starring the very young Reese Witherspoon. The movie tagline: "Remember when you couldn't wait for your life to begin... and then, one day, it did?"

Raft3r said...

i read about this sa ew.com
very catchy yun title
magagamit ko yan sa future posts
hehe

The Scud said...

fine line folk, subukan ko hanapin yan. sana may kopya pa.

thanks for visiting!

The Scud said...

raft3r, pwedeng-pwede. maghanap ka na ng summer mo. huwag si janet. :D

Visual Velocity said...

Ganda ng poster! Simple lang. Saw a bootleg OST of this film. I think I'll buy it. :)

Kevin said...

Napanood ko na yan ang I must say I liked it, pero not to the point na I'd want to watch it ulit. Just right. :D

len said...

I watched this and I super loved it!

I also like the scene in the park and the ending cracks me up. :p

Tom: You don't want to be someone's girl friend and now you're someone's wife. I could never understand that...

Summer: I woke up one morning and I just knew.

Tom: Knew what?

Summer: What I was never sure of with you.