Writer: Ezekiel Lee Zhiang Yang

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Watch this if you liked: "Love, Actually”, “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind”, “Garden State”, “Serendipity”

How do you make a hit rom-com (both critically and commercially acclaimed) if not by taking one man's real life heartbreak story and hiring two of the most talented young(er) indie favourites out there to play it out? "(500) Days Of Summer" is offbeat, dreamy and soundtrack-charged, while amazingly maintaining a healthy distance from the dreaded teen genre we have come to loathe since cheerleaders wore skirts.

There's a great success story here. First, the movie walloped the sixth "Harry Potter" movie on a per-theatre basis when it went on limited release in the U.S. back in July. Then recently multitalented star Zooey Deschanel tied the knot (something her character found very difficult to do in the movie). It seems like everything surrounding this gem of a date movie simply oozes positivity, down to the blue-centric colour palette used in the movie to bring out Deschanel's eyes!

Told out of order with title cards to denote which days out of the 500 did the lovers do what, "(500) Days Of Summer" takes us through a serendipitous romance that is not so much witty as it is silly - but the winsome pairing of Deschanel with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a suitor is at once disarming and completely engaging. The male character Tom goes through courtship hell with his crush Summer, as we watch them through 95 clumsy but meaningful minutes of shower sex, Ikea shopping and Brit pop discussions. There's even a delightful musical sequence, Bollywood-style!

Perhaps some elements of this movie took some shine out of the whole experience. There are plenty of tame humour and extended periods of pointless inactivity that could've been omitted. The reassuring narrator who started us off on the story also doesn't return to send us off on a happy ending. However, "(500) Days Of Summer" does finish strong and its persuasive sentiments on contemporary romance elevate the movie from inoffensive to memorable. Some may wish there were 500 more.

Cinema Online, 24 September 2009