(500) Days of Summer

(I Hate) This Title

Toward the beginning of (500) Days of Summer, the main character argues that this is not a love story.  I don't know how accurate that statement is.  This is kind of a romantic comedy for dudes, in the grand tradition of High Fidelity.  In other words, it's a romantic comedy that is happy to point out how just how it is not conforming to the formulas of the traditional rom-com.  And yet, when you watch it, you get the distinct feeling that this is a romantic comedy.  Because it really, really, really feels like one, until you get to the end.  The ending reminded me of a song by one of my favorite bands, Pulp.  Here's their awful music video, complete with the finest British fashion, circa 1996.

The story is told in a non-linear fashion, with a note at the beginning of each new scene, pointing out where the scene lines up in the 500 days of Tom's story.  The basics of the story are not particularly unconventional.  Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who has studied to be an architect but works writing greeting cards, is immediately smitten when he meets the new girl at work.  Her name is Summer (Zooey Deschanel), and the day they meet is Day 1.  Summer is pretty fun and outgoing, but she doesn't let people get emotionally close to her; in other words, she's an awesome acquaintance, but not much of a friend.  Plus, she claims to not want a boyfriend.  Pshaw!  Isn't this a kinda sorta romantic comedy?  There must be some semblance of romance, right?

I think she's explaining why she sounds a little like Kermit when she sings in She & Him.

The nonlinear story structure is what makes this feel like a romantic comedy.  If it was told in chronological order, it wouldn't be very funny.  Most of the humor comes from juxtaposing different days in the 500 day time line, making the scenes seem comically at odds.  Sure, there's some good dialogue within the scenes themselves, but I don't think this would qualify as either very "romantic" or "comedic" without this story structure.

The acting in this movie is never bad, but you might recognize some of the characters as fairly generic.  I enjoyed Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance; I thought he hit the nail on the head as the single guy who is trying to decode the mystery of woman, with varying degrees of success.  If absolutely nothing else, I have to admit that I liked his character's wardrobe; I'm pretty sure I own every album featured on his band T-shirts.  His character is very likable, and it's easy to identify with him, even if he does get a little whiny at times.  His only flaw seems to be selling himself short, which isn't exactly the sort of character flaw that adds complexity to a character.  Zooey Deschanel once again plays an eccentric and somewhat flighty object of desire.  If that sounds familiar, it's because she has played this type of character a few times, notably in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, and I can totally buy her as an object of desire, but I haven't seen her in a role that's demanded much from her yet.  The rest of the cast is full of small parts.  Clark Gregg plays Tom's surprisingly kind stuffed shirt of a boss.  Matthew Gray Gubler is the friend that has a stable relationship and contributes almost nothing to the story until he has a speech about true love.  Chloe Moretz was pretty amusing as Tom's little sister and confidant; once again, she plays a character mature beyond her years, and she does a pretty good job of it.  Geoffrey Arend is Tom's idiot friend; I'm okay with Arend's performance here, but I just wanted to point out that he is married to Christina Hendricks.  That makes no damn sense to me.

Arend, master of mind control?

I should also point out Minka Kelly's brief appearance at the end of the film.  She didn't have a chance to do much, since her character's job was to just look pretty and say five or six lines, but her character is important to the story.

This was director Marc Webb's first feature film, and it's a pretty good debut.  I'm not exactly sure what about this movie got him the job directing the 2012 Spider-Man reboot, but he certainly shows some signs of talent in this film.  Nonlinear stories can be tricky to pull off on film, and they can appear gimmicky.  I don't see any way around the gimmicky thing; this would have been a far less interesting story if it was told in chronological order.  However, I think Webb pulled off the storytelling quite well.  He used a lot of strong images, along with the indicators as to what day happened when, to help the audience understand where each chapter fell within the overall story.  His use of locations and costumes definitely made the story easier to follow.  I also thought that he did a good job handling the overall tone of the film.  It's kind of funny, but not at the expense of the story.  It's kind of sad, but the humor balances it out.  I really enjoyed Webb's homages to other film genres; there is a short musical scene, one that is reminiscent of Italian cinema,and a touch of noir.

There really are a lot of things to like in this movie.  It doesn't play by the typical rules that we have come to know and expect in our romantic movies.  The direction and storytelling are pretty fun.  I feel like I should have enjoyed this far more than I did, because so many of the pieces seem right up my alley. 

Unfortunately, I don't think that this film is nearly as different as the filmmakers would want you to believe.  There are a lot of similarities here to other movies, some of them are obviously intentionally self-aware (the romantic comedy story arc, the film style homages, etc.) and some of them surprisingly oblivious (Tom's rant against the greeting card industry is surprisingly close to something out of High Fidelity).  Right off the bat, the story claims to not be a love story, and then it promptly manipulates the chronology of the story to fit the established formula of a love story; I understand that the writers were being clever with that, but it definitely felt too self-satisfied for my tastes.  Even the title tries to do something different, with the parentheses around "500," and, for reasons I can't really justify, irks me.

On the other hand, the story is quirky, the acting is pretty good (particularly Gordon-Levitt, who I am liking more and more) and the direction was especially good for a (not) romantic comedy.  I definitely enjoyed watching the movie, but it didn't have enough emotional impact to overcome a lack of explosions or utter coolness. 

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I've done a little research and have concluded that there are four types of reactions for those that have seen The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

• - those that have read author Douglas Adams' work and are relieved by this adaptation of it
• - those that have read Adams' work and hate what happened between the page and the screen
• - those that have not read the books and end up being charmed by the whimsical nature of the storytelling
• - those that have not read the books and see this a a hit-or-miss movie with no story and little character development.

All of these reactions are justified, but they all miss the point.  Like the book that it is based on, this movie is less about plot and more about how the story is told.  The whos, wheres, and whys are largely inconsequential; the emphasis is on the delivery.  And that delivery is excellent.

This is a story about how the world ends.  I'll save you the suspense; aliens blow it up within the first ten minutes of the film to make room for an intergalactic highway.  From there, our everyman point-of-view character, Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), is taken on a pan-galactic adventure with his best friend, Ford Prefect (Mos Def).  Ford was an undercover alien on Earth, doing research on the planet for his employer, the constantly updated and best-selling book in the universe (literally), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Ford uses his hitchhiking skills to save Arthur and himself, and there their adventure begins.  Before the movie ends, we find out the answer to "life, the universe and everything," what the smartest creatures on Earth are, and what it feels like to be a woman.  For those of us that might be curious.  On this adventure, they gain some new companions, including the last human female in the cosmos, Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), a chronically depressed robot (with Alan Rickman providing the voice while Warwick Davis manned the costume), and the President of the Galaxy (Sam Rockwell).

If that all sounds fairly random...well, it is.  The primary plot device for this film is a spaceship that has an "Infinite Improbability Drive," which allows just about anything to happen in this movie.  Randomness might not be great for a coherent plot, but it does help with some fantastic visuals.  This movie doesn't do much with CGI special effects, instead opting for men in rubber suits, and it's a great choice.  All the aliens in this movie look amazing, from the bovine Vogon race to Humma Kavula's (John Malkovich's) spindly lower body.  These special effects choices were made, I think, not to impress you with the action sequences, but to be as funny and weird as the source material demanded.  Could this movie have been made with an animated depressed robot, voiced by Alan Rickman?  Of course.  They could have gone the Scooby Doo route, but it's much funnier to see an actual person wobble around with such a top-heavy costume.  Director Garth Jennings' only previous film work was on music videos, and it shows here.  His concern is clearly on the visuals and the timing of little moments, not on the film as a cohesive whole.  And he does an excellent job with that.  This is one of the most visually exciting movies of the past decade; Hitchhiker's has it all, from aliens and robots, to an entire scene where the characters and setting have been turned into yarn.

The visuals would not hold up nearly as well without impeccable casting.  Choosing Martin Freeman as the everyman character was a good move and Zooey Deschanel does a good job as a woman looking for the extraordinary.  Mos Def does a fantastic job as Ford Prefect, showing a talent for timing an understatement that he hasn't used a lot since (the adorable Be Kind Rewind being the only notable exception).  Sam Rockwell is hilarious as the bombastic airhead, President Zaphod Beeblebrox; I can totally understand his character annoying some viewers, but even his little gestures make me laugh here.  If you're not perfectly entertained by those two interacting, then there's nothing I can do to make this a more pleasurable movie experience for you.  Well, I guess I could point out the always awkward and charming Bill Nighy and his understated performance as a custom-made planet designer.

It is rare for a live action film to have the need for several voice actors, but this is an odd film.  Voice acting is, nowadays at least, a hit or miss field.  Movie studios usually want someone famous to lend their voice, regardless of how expressive that voice may be.  Luckily, this movie has some of the best voice acting you will find in any movie.  Ever.  Alan Rickman as a droll, clinically depressed, super smart robot?  Yes, please!  Helen Mirren as the biggest, smartest, and fastest computer ever created?  Sure, why not?  Thomas Lennon as an inappropriately optimistic computer for a spaceship?  That's an interesting casting choice, but it definitely works here.  Rounding out the voice cast, Stephen Fry does a perfect job as the narrator of the story and the reader of any Hitchhiker's Guide entries.

Douglas Adams wrote the screenplay for this movie, but died before it went into production.  The screenplay does differ significantly in parts from the book, but Adams made radical changes every time the story was adapted to a new medium (it's been on the radio and TV, as well), so that shouldn't be a big deal for rabid fans.  This isn't a movie that is slavishly indebted to the book that it is based upon.  This is a movie (written by the book's author) that understands the need for visuals to match the storytelling of the book.  No, this isn't a great story.  It is a lot of harmless fun, though.