Day 164: "There's only two kinds of people in the world. There's women, and there's men. Summer Finn was a woman."

Decided to watch (500) Days of Summer today, don't know why, just struck me.  I thought it might be interesting, possibly good.  Turns out I was right on both counts.  The story revolves around one young man's journey through a 500 day relationship with, what he believes to be, the woman of his dreams.  Unfortunately, she is a free spirit who doesn't believe in the trappings of relationships, preferring to go day-to-day, never knowing what might strike her fancy when.  These two eventually develop a relationship, complete with its ups, downs, and everything in between.  Each of them have some really nice insights into themselves, each other, and life in general, lots of them very quotable.  The main character, Tom, writes greeting cards for a living, and then Summer begins working in his office as an administrative assistant.  The two hit it off soon after, becoming good friends, eventually escalating to relationship.  The movie looks at a lot of different sides of relationships, from a split screen dinner party, showing what Tom was expecting versus what actually happened, down to the inane, clumsy chatter that is inherent with getting to really know someone.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Tom, a mid twenties guy who has chosen to write greeting cards, although he was trained as an architect.  As he puts it, "I guess I just figured, why make something disposable like a building when you can make something that last forever, like a greeting card."  With this statement I understood his motives.  Zooey Deschanel is Summer, bringing her distinctive style to the character.  I don't know Ms. Deschanel, but I would like to think that she put a lot of her own personality into Summer.

This movie goes from very funny to heart-achingly painful, but remains entertaining throughout.  This is a treatise on someone falling truly in love for the first time, the agony that follows when it doesn't work out, and the melancholy understanding when he discovers it will never be.  I really liked this movie, although it's not really my kind of film.  Give it a shot.  8.25/10.

See you tomorrow, and GO WATCH A MOVIE!!