(500) Days of Summer

There's a scene early in this movie where Zooey Deschanel does a karaoke version of Nancy Sinatra's Sugar Town. Soon after, Joseph-Gordon Levitt does his own version of The Pixies' Here Comes Your Man. At that point, it was clear these were two characters I wanted to get to know better. While I'm not a huge rom-com fan, this is one I can get behind, mostly because it ditches all of the tired formulas and cliches associated with the genre. For one, it's told in a non-linear format, jumping around to different days in the lives of Tom and Summer, illustrating the evolution of their complex relationship. Sure, non-linear story telling is nothing new, but I don't believe I've seen it attempted in this genre; at least not this successfully. Some scenes are made more poignant because we know how things turn out in the future. Beyond the format, the writing here is brilliant and may be the best hipster rom-com since High Fidelity. The script is drenched in pop culture references which will likely fly over most people's heads; don't feel bad, I'm sure there's several I missed too. But this isn't a movie obsessed with how smart it is. The story and characters remain the focus at all times without detouring into self-indulgent narrative tangents. Considering this was written by the team that brought us The Pink Panther 2, it's quite remarkable how this film turned out. So if you're still mourning the loss of John Hughes, give this film a shot. It'll help restore your faith in movies.