Hulu Comedy Classic Highlights The Expectations Vs Realities Of Dating
If you’re an avid watcher of romantic comedies, you’re likely already familiar with the runaway hit 2009 film 500 Days of Summer. The movie, which is currently streaming on Hulu, contains some of the most fun and inventive visual storytelling of any film in the genre by presenting dueling visions of the expectations of dating vs. the often frustrating realities. Today, 500 Days of Summer is hailed as a classic entry into the romantic comedy niche, and serves as one of my personal favorites.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt Stars In 500 Days Of Summer
The narrative of 500 Days of Summer centers on Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Tom Hansen, an aspiring architect who pays his bills by writing greeting cards for a major card-stock company. After a chance encounter with the firm’s latest hire, the beautiful and mysterious Summr Finn, Tom becomes obsessed with the idea of falling in love, and pursues her despite her insistence that she doesn’t want a serious relationship.
Tom agrees to see Summer casually, though he is clearly far more interested in elevating their relationship to the next level than she is, resulting in a number of arguments.
Non-Linear Timeline
The film is told through a fascinating non-linear structure, which catalogs Tom and Summer’s 500 days of romance with vignettes plucked from the timeline and assembled seemingly at random. As a result, 500 Days of Summer provides a whiplash-inducing series of scenes that show the couple at their best, their worst, and everywhere in between. This structure makes the film much more intriguing than a traditional rom-com, while a few well-choreographed song and dance numbers and large-scale set-pieces elevate the film to cult status.
Zooey Deschanel As Summer
Zooey Deschanel does an excellent job at bringing Summer to life, even though her performance has since been criticized for launching the “manic pixie dream-girl” archetype, which has been aped in a number of projects over the course of the 2010s.
Breaks The Mold Of The Rom-Com
Critics and audiences alike responded well to 500 Days of Summer upon release, resulting in the film’s 85 percent certified fresh critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. While there are certain elements of the movie that haven’t aged gracefully, the core story is still a fun, fascinating watch that breaks the mold of most traditional romantic comedies.
Personally, I keep finding myself coming back to this film for its heart and sense of humor, even if I wind up liking Tom a little less with each subsequent rewatch.
The screenplay for 500 Days of Summer was written by the screenwriting duo of Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and appeared on the “most liked” unproduced scripts on the Blacklist in 2006. According to DVD commentary for the film, much of the film’s narrative is autobiographical to Neustadter, which sheds some light on why aspects of this larger-than-life production can sometimes feel so genuine and personal.
Streaming On Hulu
REVIEW SCORE
If you’re interested in checking out 500 Days of Summer today, be sure to stream the film on Hulu. While I enthusiastically recommend the movie, I wouldn’t call it a 100 percent perfect outing… if only to manage your expectations of the film vs. the realities of a watch-through.
