FILM: (500) DAYS OF SUMMER
REVIEWED BY ADAM KAMIEN

IT shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that (500) Days of Summer has gone gangbusters. All the ingredients for a sleeper indie hit are present and correct, from the pop culture references and low budget, to “it” actors in the starring roles and outsider quirks aplenty.

Even director Mark Webb is making his feature debut after cutting his teeth on –- you guessed it -– music videos.

But like almost all of the interminable parade of indie sleeper hits to go before it, when stripped of its stilted idiosyncrasies, narrative tricks and flood of alt-pop nods, a total lack of substance is revealed.

(500) Days of Summer goes even further into the mire, utilising the lazy device of a narrator to reinforce plot points, just in case you don’t get the point.

The film’s tag line boasts: “Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t,” puffing its indie chest as if to say “this is way different to the standard romantic comedy”. Problem is, it’s not.

Jewish actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom, who works in a quirky greeting card store, lives in a quirky loft apartment, dresses quirkily, has quirky friends, and is into every quirky indie-defining platitude from The Smiths to French New Wave.

Tom falls for Summer, the new girl in the office played by the quirky indie darling Zooey Deschanel. The pair get all of each other’s indie quirks in a way that mere mainstream people never could and start dating.

But in a spectacular indie role reversal, he falls head over heals, but she doesn’t want to commit -– so indie.

The film has plenty of tricks to distract us from the fact that this is standard fare. As the title suggests, the film takes place over 500 days and jumps around from day 488 to 16, then to 1, back to 92 and so on.

There is a narrator; a moderately interesting split-screen that depicts two versions of the same scene, showing Tom’s expectations and the reality at the same time; an infuriating dance number; and some animated stuff in an attempt to … well, who knows what.

What the film is ultimately trying to tell us is that love hurts. Revelatory. There are some nice moments that recall all those times you’ve had your heart handed to you, but they are few and far between.

By the time the final insult comes in the form of a voiceover hammering home the gen Y agnosticism of it all (maybe it’s fate, maybe not … ah, who cares anyway), it just doesn’t matter.

(500) Days of Summer is now screening.