As the tag line of the movie suggests, this is not a love story, but a story about love.
It is a simple story about boy meets girl, but from the perspective of the boy.
What makes it so refreshing and can stand out among others?
1. Non-traditionally, their story is presented in a non-chronological way. So it would jump back and forth between the 500 days of their relationship, with the day stated clearly before each scene.
2. Unconventionally, the boy fantasizes about true love, fate, soul mate and commitment while the girl is realistically pessimistic about those things and does not at all believe in true love. She would rather have fun in casual relationship and sex without caring too much for the future.
3. They don't live happily ever after in the end. Instead, they walk their separate ways.
4. First time movie director Marc Webb's stylish handling and personalised telling of the story. His vision and technique showed his root as the MTV director, which is especially an extra credit in this movie to add the very suitable songs and soundtrack to propel and enhance the story.
5. It's not another formula romantic comedy or usual chick flick. But rather it may be equally appealing to both gender of the audience for the first time.
6. Joseph Gordon Levitt started acting since very young age and his training through sit-com like "Third Rock from the Sun" and various good independent movies makes him a perfect candidate for the lead character Tom in this movie, as he's capable of both good subtle humorous and overtly dramatic performance at the same time. And also it would be the right moment for Zooey Deschanel to shine here as Summer.
However, to me, it's Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter's brilliant story with witty humour and its angle that impressed me most. In fact, the story is very plain and simple, but it has those realistic qualities that we all encountered and experienced in lives. And that's why it touches our hearts and causes resonance.
Male or female, when in love, we all go through the sweet-and-bitter sort of long-awaiting pursuing, the passionate ecstasy when going steady, the guilty pleasure in doing minor stupid things together, and sometimes the heartbreaking fights, the cool down and get-back-together stuffs, and of course unavoidably, the final closure and permanent separation. Some of these were nicely captured and presented innovative in the movie like the expectations/reality split-screen, the park dance sequence, the various old-place bench on the hill scenes, etc......
In the movie, Tom and Summer, though very different in terms of their views about love and commitment, can't help but fall in love, which may well be destined to be a failure. However, through the relationship and their encounter, they influence each other greatly. Tom taught Summer, through his passion in Architecture, to look at things carefully which people normally ignored, while Summer taught him that life is never as well-planned and structured as Architecture, and so people should be adventurous and able to take chances like she is. Besides, towards the end of the movie, Tom learnt to be less hopelessly romantic and trust less in the fate and even quited his job, while Summer began to believe in coincidence and found her true love. We can see even though things don't work out for them, through the 500 days, they affected each other tremendously.
Similarly, I guess we all matures and gets better personally through love and every single relationship. It doesn't matter even it fails at the end. Just like the end of this movie, after the heartbreak comes a bit more wisdom. And after Summer, there comes Autumn!
