(500) Days of Summer

I hate romcoms, with their irritatingly smug and predictable "boy meets girl and will *definitely* end up with her despite various thuddingly contrived obstacles" plots. Lazy plotting is the least of their problems. Luckily, (500) Days of Summer isn't strictly speaking a romcom. Half of it is (sort of) and half of it isn't (breaking up and its aftermath) but not necessarily in that order. Title cards mark the various days so the temporal jumping around is never confusing. Instead there's a bittersweet juxtaposition of the happy times and the sad, and a canny use of the same images for entirely different effects depending on the emotional state of Tom. Not that he wasn't warned from the very beginning. He believes he's found "the one" but Summer doesn't believe in fate, doesn't particularly want a boyfriend at all and wants to keep it casual. Tom assumes she'll end up loving him as much as he loves her - something even his little sister can see isn't going to happen.
What could have ended up unbearably quirky actually manages to be completely wonderful. There's a lovely "morning after" musical number that develops as Tom makes his way to work, which will bring a smile to the face of anyone with a soul, and which contrasts with his later post-break up misanthropic response to passing couples. Periodically there's a deft use of split screen (the credit sequence of the protagonists as children; the contrast of Tom's expectations with reality as he attends a party) and the soundtrack is a cracker, even Tom's karaoke version of Pixies' Here Comes Your Man (that's one hell of a karaoke machine)
Of course, all the clever touches mean nothing if you don't give a damn about the characters. Tom might be frustrated by Summer's attitude but as a subsequent blind date points out, she's never lied to him or cheated on him. In fact, she told him exactly where she stood at the very beginning. The film might be from Tom's POV but Summer's never demonised. You can see why Tom's besotted. Tom meanwhile is adorable while trying to win the girl and deeply sympathetic when he loses her. Joseph Gordon-Levitt works wonders, managing to be charming, funny, vulnerable and thoroughly likeable even during the depths of self-pity. After seeing his astonishing turns in Mysterious Skin, Brick and The Lookout, it's nice to see him smiling through a film. Perhaps the sweetest (in the best sense) part, however, belongs to Paul, one of Tom's friends. He's the object of some stick for dating Robin, his childhood sweetheart. After describing what his ideal woman woud be, he ends by saying that actually he prefers Robin, because she's real. Which kind of sums up the all-round loveliness of the film ...