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Unconventional, offbeat but often hilarious, (500) Days of Summer is a summer you’ll remember for years to come.

I have two announcements that I’d like to formally make right here to start my review: I have a big crush on the darling actress named Zooey Deschanel, who steals your heart, not to mention Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s, in the new offbeat but tenderly bittersweet romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer, which I’d to anoint as the sleeper hit of the summer, maybe even the year. It’s an unconventionally amusing, often pensive but moving love story.

(500) Days of Summer is the first anti-romantic comedy to come along in sometime, which explains a big part of its appeal. It tells the year-and-a-half story of a hopeless romantic and altogether sensitive dude and greeting card writer named Tom (Gordon-Levitt), who feels he isn’t complete without the perfect woman in his life. He seemingly finds that in Summer (Deschanel), a new co-worker whom he is smitten with even after she says up front she really isn’t looking for love, but maybe a good friend. Tom likes Summer. Tom loves Summer. But Summer is looking for other things, which lead the two down a unique and unpredictable but one-sided love affair.

(500) Days of Summer is an unsusual but bitterweet rom com with room for fun with sublime performances from the leads. The paths it takes are certainly unconventional, but remarkably moving. (500) Days is perfectly and exceptionally cast, with two actors who are made for something this offbeat. Deschanel is the best thing about the film: charming and quirky but wholly sympathetic as the girl who’s unsure at what she’s looking for, and makes you forget she was in the awful horror film The Happening.

Just as good is the boyishly handsome Gordon-Levitt, who’s morphed from the geeky mullet-haired alien kid in 3rd Rock from the Sun to a terrific actor and a dashing leading man. Gordon-Levitt’s sensitive portrayal of a guy with a rather stilted view of love and who wears way, way too many sweater vests anchors the film nicely, along with a playful chemistry he shares with Deschanel.

(500) Days is an auspicious first feature debut from director Marc Webb and the writing team of Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. Their slightly peculiar views and explanations of romance are refreshingly different, though the jumpiness of the plot occasionally gives it an uneven feel, and a large part of the relationship quirks seem surface level. Still, (500) Days makes up for its choppiness by adding some entertaining, memorable scenes along this different romantic journey.

One such amusing scene in (500) Days has Tom dancing to the Hall & Oates ‘80s tune You Make My Dreams (part of a great soundtrack that should become a hit, with the exception of that hideous Patrick Swayze song She’s Like the Wind from Dirty Dancing) following an amorous evening with Summer. (500) Days goes back and forth in time, detailing the high and lows of Tom and Summer’s relationship, blurring love’s reality and love’s expectations. What you want to happen often doesn’t and what you don’t want to happen often does.

As a warning, the final scene between Tom and Summer is a heartbreaking one, but Gordon-Levitt is astonishingly poignant (closely watch his face as he turns away and I dare you not to be moved). Just you think he’s about to give up on love, fate brought two people together that led to bringing two more people together who were really meant for each other. Strange as it sounds, it all makes sense when you see (500) Days.

(500) Days is unconventional but enjoyable, pleasurable summer fun, even for a romantic comedy. In spite of the slightly unsatisfying but brave ending, I still could watch Zooey Deschanel in anything, even with She’s Like the Wind playing in the background. This is definitely a Summer to remember.

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