Monday, February 16, 2015

Movie Review/Analysis: 500 Days Of Summer Pt.1

           





This post is dedicated to Jeremy, may he rest in peace.

 

READ BEFORE PROCEEDING: What’s up guys this is Rodolfo Perez. I’ve doing some thinking and have decided to give a review/analysis of a movie. Now, it will probably be divided into several parts, but will not be consecutive so if you don’t like the movie I’m reviewing or you just get bored don’t worry because it’s not like this will take up the whole blog or anything. With that being said, I would love to hear from you on your thoughts on the movie by either commenting below or emailing me. Don’t forget to follow me on twitter or subscribe my email to get all the updates on the blog. With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy the read and I will talk later. SPOILERS


Image result for 500 days of summer When you decide to watch a romantic movie you usually expect some type of quirky beginning, some misunderstanding in the middle, and a final pronouncement of love in front of a large crowd of people. I remember the first actual romantic I watched in full was The Notebook, and being honest I didn’t really like it all that much for those reasons. Romantic movies are very repetitive and unless the actual filming is done well, the movie flops. I remember when I first saw “500 Days of Summer” I wasn’t really paying attention because, well, I expected the typical template of a romantic. I recently watched the movie on Thursday, and ladies and gentlemen, if you have not seen this film because you are expecting a typical romantic comedy/drama, you should really reconsider it. What Marc Webb put the audience through is something that is rarely seen in the romantic genre. Although the movie is 95 minutes long, you feel almost as if you have seen three movies instead of one. The beginning of the movie opens up with the note where the director is openly condemning a former love which gives the audience a sense of how the movie is going to play out. I thought the note was both humorous as it was powerful. To the unsuspecting viewer it may just seem like a reminder, almost a special acknowledgement to someone in the directors past. After the note, we are immediately fast forwarded into day 488 where the two title characters are seen holding hands. Summer, played by the amazing Zooey Deschanel, has a wedding ring on her finger, while Tom, played by the awkward Joseph Gordon-Levitt, has his hand covered by Summer’s, leaving us out of the picture, making us the spectators, or the one left outside of the inside joke. That’s sort of what Marc Webb did, the movie can be seen as almost an inside joke that the audience is slowly brought into as the movie progresses. The narrator says outright that this a boy meets girl story, which is true, but to the audience we sort of say underneath our breath “yeah right, and I bet this isn’t a romantic comedy either”. I think the narrator was a good move by Marc. By putting in the narrator it does not only move the plot along and sort of fill in the holes, but it acts as a conscious for the viewer. We are given the role as the audience from the beginning where Tom’s hand is blocked from our eyes, and Webb knew this, so he gave us a guide to the film in the narrator, who was Richard McGonagle by the way. Moving on, we are shot to day one, where Tom is introduced. Tom, to say the least, is made out to be a conformist. He goes with the way of love where he has the vision of being with somebody, and finding someone, which is what the typical romantic movie is, it’s the journey of two people to their love, and their hardships. I love that the movie introduces the artwork that was “The Graduate” because it gives a little hint of what’s going to happen in the movie to those who have seen “The Graduate”, and if you have not seen that movie I highly recommend it. 
Image result for the graduate 
Anyways, so Tom is shown to be a firm believer in the traditionalist ways, but then we are presented to Summer. To put it in simple terms, Summer is a bit of a realist. She sees things as they are, and because of that, does not necessarily believe in love or the idea of destiny. So those are the two characters in the film to which we come to know, recognize, and even understand where they come from. Marc Webb takes two of the most popular personas out in society and put them side by side to see their encounters and conversations. The transitions between the experiences shared and those experienced by the individual are shown in great light throughout this film. I wish I could talk more, but I have to go. More to come, thank you for reading.

                                                END OF PART 1
                                                                      P.E.N.T.C.I. 

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