500 Days of Summer

Romantic comedies are tricky. This film has all sorts of schemes to avoid the predictable.

For example, the 500 days are enumerated on screen as dividers to separate flashbacks and give chronological guidance. The art behind the numbers is even shaded to correspond to the mood of the romance at that point in time. There are lots of other gimmicks and plenty of pop musical soundtrack (and I mean plenty) to flesh out the ups and downs of the main character's infatuation with Summer (the girl).

I liked the film although it exploited one of my cinematic pet peeves: the precocious child who has unbelievable insight into adult relationships. This peeve is accompanied by an equally annoying corollary: the adult friend who is has an unbelievable lack of insight into adult relationships.

Nevertheless, see it. It's fun. The music is good, even if every nook and cranny is filled with it. The acting is good even though at times you just want to slap the characters out of their self-indulgence.