500 Days of Summer

As a post modern dissertation on a doomed lead-or-be-led relationship, director Marc Webb's romantic comedy suffers from script formatting that randomly jumps between specific days in the life of an affair between ego-hindered Tom (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and commitment-phobe Summer (played by Zooey Deshanel). In spite of its overworked structure, the movie captures a believable romance between Tom and Summer, who work together at a greeting card company. Insecure Tom lets Summer make the first move, and pays dearly for it as she lays the ground rules for what will be an emotionally bumpy ride for Tom. Summer insists that she doesn't believe in "love," while their coziness turns would-be architect Tom into a veritable song-and-dance man. The lopsided romance goes repeatedly off and on until a dramatic change of heart creates a climax that makes one of them a better person, and reveals hypocrisy in the other. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great as a hopeless romantic, and Zooey Deshanel embodies a cold-fish charmer whose mod girl styling is but a clever disguise for a person looking for a better deal.
(Fox Searchlight) Rated PG-13. 96 mins. (B-) (Three Stars)