2011년 11월 9일 수요일

Movie Review: 500 days of summer

Movie Review: 500 days of summer
Soho Shim(critic in KMLA)
Overall score: ★☆ 9/10

"We all met summer"
This catchphrase in the poster suggests one point to us: this story is our story, the story about love.
("Author's note: The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Especially you, Jenny Beckman.
")
To briefly say, this movie is a 'cool' romantic comedy. Unlike other high-teen, romantic comedy movies, this movie is realistic which makes us bitter, but simpathize to our experience.



1. summer effect?
In the movie, there appears 'summer effect'. Summer effect is the phenomenon that can be easily seen in our small society. A woman mixed up with average height, weight, slightly above average face, etc becomes a small star to numerous men. The song which she mentioned in the graduation album gains popularity for a short time, and the ice cream store where she worked earned 21.2% increase in revenue. The bus which she takes is always full of men. And Tom is one of those men.




This 'summer' exists in all town, school, and everywhere. In those societies, she is a small star and love rumor maker. She is not 'Emma Watson', not disparate. She seems 'doable'. However, loving her can make one suffer a lot, as this is the matter of 'fan' rather than that of 'love'. Although loving a star is such an agony, people cannot blame the star. Actuall, who can? It's not her fault to be loved.

2. Exaggeration
Tom who is mesmerized by Summer starts to sink into the illusion he made. The illusion that Summer is his woman just because she has a similar music taste and had a long conversation with him related to that. He is too timid to propose her, but he really wants to tell the start of his 'fate' to someone else. To Tom, his younger sister Chloe gives an advice,

"Just because some cute girl likes the same bizarre crap you do that doesn't make her your soul mate, Tom"





Like many people who do one-sided love, Tom interprets the status with Summer as 'booming of love' from all the things that is nothing more than love to Summer. And by explaining the act of Summer to others, Tom wants to hear the conclusion, "She loves you." or "You guys would make a good couple". However, unfortunately, that is just a fantasy for Tom.

3. Girlfriend? or A friend who is a girl?
Undeniably, Tom and Summer become very intimate. Tom perceives this relationship as a 'couple', although they didn't officially address that. He doesn't think that they don't need any labels like 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend'.
However, when he asks her to define the relationship, she just says "Who cares? Aren't you happy?" It seems like she's thinking Tom as a best friend. And to her, Tom is getting confused and upset.

4. Expectation and Reality
After a break between them, Tom is invited to the party from Summer. He expects a happy ending with her, but his expection just bursted like a bubble in milk shake.


5. Afterwards?
What will happen next?
new start?


+the response from critics&other viewers (excerpt from Metacritic)
Here is a rare movie that begins by telling us how it will end and is about how the hero has no idea why.
 -Chicago Sun-Times Reviewed by: Roger Ebert

Ultimately, the best thing about (500) Days of Summer isn't its gimmicky script. It's the constant performance of Gordon-Levitt, who shifts, scene-by-scene, from moments of ebullience to abject dejection.
-The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Reviewed by: Liam Lacey

Much like the actual summer (the season, not the character), we never wanted it to end.
-Premiere Reviewed by: Staff (Not credited)

If you don't feel in love and hopeful again after seeing this movie, then you have a heart of stone.
-one of the users

-->total score from critics: 7.6/total score from users: 7.8

6. Words that can describe this movie (and my subjective score)
-realistic
-bitter, but still...hopeful!
-not that funny or entertaining(actually...little bit boring)
-but still, it has some sense of humor
-not childish

Well...you may feel bitter while watching this movie, but...who knows? Maybe, Tom's situation turned out to be happy in the end. It is better not to say much about the ending:)Enjoy the movie!

+trailer for those who are curious!!




댓글 1개:

  1. Seungmin also reviewed this! It's a pretty good movie, but like you said - just a bit better than so - so. Nice work.

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