Today was another day that was too beautiful to let pass by without getting out and enjoying it, so I decided to head to Bethesda. My friend Pia had raved about Ali Baba's Falafel in Bethesda and the arthouse movie theater there was one of the three in the area showing (500) Days of Summer, which I'd been anxiously awaiting. Who am I to resist kismet?
The falafel was the second-best I've ever had (first best is still L'as du Fallafel in the Marais section of Paris) and while I was sitting there on the curb scarfing it down who should walk by but Pia? She and another friend of hers were there perusing the goods that the outdoor bazaar at the Farm Women's Market had on display. We chatted for a bit and then I did my own turn of perusing the wares before heading down the hill to the movie theater.
After buying my ticket I still had some time to kill before the show started, so I popped into the Gifford's next door and got myself a peanut butter cookies and cream ice cream cone. Yummmmmmm. The movie turned out to be as good as I'd hoped. It was sadder and more realistic than most romantic movies. It's a non-linear, out of sequence narrative that charts various events over the course of a guy's life in the five hundred days that pass after he meets a woman named Summer.
There are sweet, romantic, happy, funny scenes and bitter, cynical, sad, funny scenes -- with the latter predominating toward the end. The casting is perfect. Even though Zooey Deschanel doesn't fit the cookie cutter Hollywood sex object mold, she's completely believable as the irresistible attractive and destructive force in the guy's life. The lead characters are both annoying and likeable in their own rights. They're much like real people in that regard.
The movie's bittersweet love story of a quirky couple and scrambled narrative style are probably most similar to another movie I loved, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Even the soundtrack for (500) Days is awesome, with the exception of two snippets of Patrick Swayze warbling "She's Like the Wind." Gack. The excellent group dance scene set to Hall and Oates "You Make My Dreams Come True" in the middle of the movie atones for even that horror, however.
I'll be curious to get a woman's perspective on the film to see if the apportionment of blame for the couple's problems is different from the female point of view. I put most of the fault on Summer, while recognizing that the guy had his own share of issues. I could maybe see the pendulum of blame swinging the other way, though.
(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)
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