S
ummer Finn (acted beautifully by Zooey Deschanel) has just migrated to Los Angles and landed a girl-Friday job with the CEO of the Hampshire Greeting Card Company. When first introduced by her new boss, Mr Vance (Clark Gregg) to Tom Hansen (played warmly by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) it is love-at-first sight - at least for him it is. He is cool enough to know that he must play it slow, with patient ardour, or he'll scare her off.

Tom had studied to become an architect, but slipped into a job writing messages on greeting cards, and has been stuck there for four years. Summer is too bright and full of wit to respect this. Tom has a favourite bench on top of a small hill in a park looking out over an old part of the city. Summer's arm becomes his drawing paper as he illustrates for her what the city could look like. She is captivated. The film is a love affair with LA has it was filmed at various locations in El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (its original Spanish name).

The story is all told from Tom's point of view. Where the action might be lagging a narrator (voice of Richard McGonagles) steps in and explains to you what is happening - going as far as to caution the audience with the is "not a love story" ... but it is a "a story about love" - not altogether one-sided love, but Summer is more than your ordinary skittish female. She may not be ready to pledge a lifetime of commitment to Tom, but she knows some one she likes and she needs a friend - he just happens to be it.

The other gimmick that actually works and serves to make the film more delightful is the numbering of Tom's days in love with Summer from one to 500. Tom first met Summer on the January 8. The flick flips back and forth, seemingly irrationally, beginning with Day 290 when Tom is breaking plates after Summer pronounced, "I think we should stop seeing each others". Then, "You're still my best friend".

On Day 4 in the elevator at work she hears him listening to the Smiths and says, "I love the Smiths". Wouldn't you love her too? But it takes Tom to get to Day 154 to declare, "I'm in love with Summer". We then flick to Day 11 when Tom tells his 10-year-old, "know-it-all", sister Rachel (a stern Chlo‘ Grace Moretz) about Summer. Rachel appears whenever Tom needs to regain his sense of direction and purpose in life.

Then to Day 22 when Tom misunderstands the meaning of Summer's answer to his question on how her weekend was. "It was good", she says, with a lift to the final word "good", causing him to imagine what that really means. Their dance around each other proceeds to Day 27 and Day 28. She warns him, "I don't feel comfortable being anyone's anything". Then that, "There is no such things as love - it is a fantasy. You'll know when you feel it".

Their first kiss leaves Tom ecstatic. Their first night together sends him over the moon and dancing in the park, with dozens of others and a blue bird of happiness. By Day 87 they are bringing down the shower curtains.  But, much to Tom's consternation her favourite Beatles song is Octopus Garden, and her favourite Beatle, Ringo Starr. By Day 109 she has him over to her place, and he is astounded. It is all so different from what he expected. She opens up and tells him things about herself, things she has "never told anyone before". Yet on Day 118 he is able to tell kid-sister Rachel that he can't say, "I love you", as that would be the "kiss of death". He get's up his gumption and asks her, "What is going on with us?" and she replies, "Who cares, I'm happy". By Day 259 she is still telling him, when he has behaved in the most "un-cool manner", "we're just friends". Then very soon she says she is sorry, that "I can't give you up ... I like you".

Tom has a chorus of three to support him. Besides Rachel, whose pubescent friends adore Tom, there are Tom's two male friends, McKenzie who steals the show (played by Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler). When alone, after Summer has left the office and his life, Tom has a blind date with Alison (Rachel Boston) whom he spills his heart out about Summer and she observes, "She never cheated on you!" When Tom and Summer do meet again on Day 402 his expectations and the realities diverge, in fascinating split image portrayals of fantasy and truth. Tom also misunderstands the significance of events in that great movie The Graduate ... was it a time of innocence?
500 Days of Summer is one hour and 36 minutes long. It is rated PG 13+. The director is Marc Webb. The script is by Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber. The cinematographer is Eric Steelberg. The editor is Alan Edward Bell. The music is by Mychael Danna and Rob Simonsen. Enjoy.  sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk