500 Days of Summer: A breath of fresh air and reality in one go

Starring: Joseph Gordon Levitt, Zooey Deschanel
Category: Independant Film

Some movies defy categorisation. By the way, what is the movie anyway? It's a medium to tell a story. It's visual and auditory. And the best movies can invoke an experience, which is more than the sum of what is shown on screen and heard in the theatre. While Hollywood seems to think that the only way to do this is pump up the volume and CGI everything, some times you don't need to shout to be heard.
500 Days of Summer works on so many levels. It invokes the feeling of being in love through so many ways. It invokes it through intimacy of the Tom and Summer, through Tom's musings of the 'little things' he loves about Summer, through a park song and dance number expressing Tom's elation in being in love with Summer. But he also invokes it through Tom's sadness of Summer leaving him, Tom's rants on the 'little things' he despises of Summer, the resentment of being demoted to 'best friend', that despite his anger and bitterness over Summer rejection of him, the negativity seems to only emphasize how much he loves her.
The director has made an unconventional movie about a love but the genius of it is rather than rely on Hollywood cliches and plot, he takes the whole load of the tools of the genre, like the meet-cute and narration, and uses them for other than what it was intended, like emphasizing points and moving the plot along. For example, narration. Narration even moved from the third person perspective to almost participatory. All of this ends in a "Hollywood ending" with a not so Hollywood message (e.g. Love conquers all, Hard work is always rewarded, etc).
Best of all, despite of all the use of the story telling tools, the emotions it evokes feels genuine. Tom and Summer's relationship felt and looked real. Raw and often frayed at the edges. This is on the same level as 'Once', another movie that just tears you apart.
Immersive and inventive. Brimming with real emotions and situations. A good watch on a rainy summer day.

Music was great. Definitely worth another listen.