Skip to main contentDear Zooey Deschanel,
First of all, congratulations: on your impending marriage to Ben Gibbard, of course, and on your new movie, which I am sure is going to be a big hit. Before I say anything further, I feel I ought to clear the air regarding some previous awkwardness between us. I have, in the past, written some things about you that could have been taken the wrong way. I have suggested you specialized in playing the dewy-eyed embodiment of indie rockers' sexual fantasies. That was unfortunate. I have commented upon how agreeable you looked dressed in a little blue sailor suit. That was inappropriate. I have hinted that I would enjoy having carnal relations with you. That was unprofessional. Also, I am starting to get skeezed out by the company.
I just got back from seeing your latest romantic comedy, (500) Days of Summer. I enjoyed parts of it very much—in fact, I found the majority of it to be light, observant and cheering. I was a little put off by the opening disclaimer, which gave the usual warning that none of the characters should be mistaken for any real people, living or dead. "Especially you, Jenny Beckman," it added. "Bitch." This seemed to possibly indicate a few unresolved issues on the parts of the writers, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and director Marc Webb. But the movie quickly set about confronting those issues. It is, in fact, a movie about being the other guy: the one who doesn't get the girl at the end of the picture, the one who realizes that he was a footnote in her life and feels rather crummy about it. Hey, I've been that guy—crucial revelations in the third act could have been swiped from my own post-collegiate experiences—but then a lot of nerdy guys have, and have written screenplays about it. I couldn't decide if (500) Days of Summer felt so familiar because I'd lived it, or because I'd seen it before.
The jumbled chronology is a fresh approach, with Webb bouncing through the 500 days of a doomed relationship as if rifling through a Rolodex or—a more appropriate metaphor for this couple—hitting "shuffle" on an iPod. You will agree your co-star, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is splendidly precise playing Tom, the hopelessly self-deceived greeting-card writer who thinks he can woo the object of his workplace affections with the Smiths' "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want." (Making this song a calling card is a great way to guarantee not getting anything.) And you're very good as Summer, who is—and please, take this in the proper spirit—death in a skirt. "I'm not really looking for anything serious," she tells Tom, which he somehow fails to translate as "I'm not looking for anything serious with Tom. " Which is odd, since everything Summer says and does is directly applicable to him.
You know how the narrator admonishes at movie's beginning, "This is not a love story"? That's true—love stories require two people. And Summer is a recognizable person only in relation to Tom. You must have wondered about this at some point (maybe around the time Summer berates Tom for not following his architectural dreams): Does she have any ambitions of her own, other than not being his girlfriend? Doesn't it strike you as strange the screenwriters worked out matters as intricate as a split-screen comparison of Tom's expectations for a rooftop party with the reality of his night, but never ask what Summer's plans for the evening were?
Zooey, baby, can't you see Marc Webb and his friends don't understand you? More to the point, can't you see they don't understand Summer? Yes, I know that's part of the movie's point, but the puncturing of boys' expectations can be accomplished by three-dimensional women as well. You know this, because before you eased into playing desired enigmas, you starred in a movie called All the Real Girls, which also used an episodic structure to recount a crumbling romance, but showed your ability to play a conflicted, conscientious person. There are no real girls in (500) Days of Summer. I think you should play one again. Not for me—you don't owe me anything. But maybe you owe it to Jenny Beckman.
is rated PG-13. It opens Friday at Fox Tower.
WWeek 2015