Movie: (500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer is a movie I recent saw over the winter break. It had a very good lasting impression that I watched it again with some friends (had them watch it with me would be more correct :) ).

This movies retraces Tom's (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) relationship with Summer (Zooey Deschanel) in nonlinear fashion. It details how the love blooms, and in the next scene, jumps forward in time, to show you how a same movie date has become boring and the relationship falling apart. The first few lines spoken by the narrator cooly says "This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know up front, this is not a love story." So don't get you hopes up about a happy ending.


At times funny and touching, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel play their parts wonderfully. Joseph plays the guy who is idealistic about love, easily lovestruck when he meets the perfect match in Summer. (or rather, he thinks he finds it) Zooey, on the other hand, plays the mysterious and mesmerizing girl who won't allow herself to get too attached.

One of the last few scenes of the movie is heart-breaking, but also provides closure for Tom. Relationships might not be exactly how you think they were, but in the end, learning how to move on and how you become better experienced is what counts.

(500) Days of Summer (各位觀眾請記得，官方和正式片名的 500 是有括弧的) 是Marc Webb 的第一部長篇電影，也是一部很有趣的獨立片。男主角由早期在10 Things I Hate About You中擔任男配角，以及在頗受爭議的Mysterious Skin男主角的Joseph Gordon-Levitt所飾演。女主角則是由多才多藝的Zooey Deschanel 所演。Zooey近幾年在許多獨立片和幾部好萊烏主流片中的glamour girl角色都表現得很稱職。2000年她演Almost Famous(成名在望)男主角的姊姊，給我的印象很深。之後她接的片，我都會留意一下。

這部電影在一開始，就被旁白說"not a love story"，也就是男主角不會抱得美人歸。因此，這部電影是主要在描寫男主角與女主角如何相遇，相愛，到分開。話雖然這樣講，但本片的拍攝手法是用非線性的故事敘述方式，達到一種很妙的效果。情侶同在Ikea做很白爛的事，在熱戀期和幾個月後感情生變時的二階段，會一幕馬上接下一幕，所以得到的對比很強烈。有時這種對比，非常好笑，但有時又很心酸。不過，這樣的拍片法相當貼切。畢竟，誰在回憶以前的感情的時候，是以線性的方式在回憶的？我想，多半是跳著的吧，而且美好的，醜陋的各參半。

回想以前的感情時，是不是真的像自己回憶得那麼美好？還是其實中間的一些裂痕已經產生了，只是自己還沒有查覺？在看情這些東西之後，相信人是可以很容易地回答出來的～～