Grade: A

Let’s face it, romantic comedies tend to play on the dreams of every hopeless romantic out there, painting a flawless picture of love with the happiest of endings. If the last sentence sounded at all familiar to you, director Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summer will throw you a welcomed curve ball – unless, of course, fairy tale love stories are right up your alley and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (50/50, Inception) plays Tom, an aspiring architect turned greeting card writer who believes happiness will  come only when he finds his one true love, his soul mate. Our starry-eyed Tom falls for Summer (Zooey Deschanel; The New Girl, Elf), the new secretary at his office and Tom’s perfect match – at least in his eyes. I mean, they both have the same offbeat taste in music, what could be the problem?

The problem: Summer doesn’t exactly believe in love. A child of divorced parents, she’s not sold on the whole concept associated with that lofty four-letter word. In her mind, having fun should be the priority and the serious stuff should be “saved for later.”

The bigger problem: Tom’s head over heels for our apathetic lover and convinces himself that she is the one; Summer just doesn’t realize it yet.

For anyone who has ever experienced a relationship that was not scripted by Hollywood writers for the silver screen, (500) Days of Summer proves to be a strikingly relatable romantic comedy. Even for those who live for the impossibility of on-screen romances, this indie flick’s twist ending will reassert the themes of fate and true love. So have no fear, it won’t bum you out for the rest of the day.

Perfectly cast, (500) Days of Summer connects the audience directly to the characters as the story unfolds. Mastering multi-faceted characterization, (500) Days of Summer succeeds in doing what many other movies and pieces of literature fail to do: confuse the audience’s sympathies as viewers attempt to figure out for whom they should be rooting.

A creative, modern approach to the classic “boy meets girl” tale, (500) Days of Summer makes up for its occasional slow segments and clichéd, stock characters that play Tom’s friends with its sharp wit and seamless transition between different time periods. Able to compare “what is” to “what was” in the ill-fated relationship of Tom and Summer, the audience can better understand the built in complexities of the romance.

In just an hour and 35 minutes, audiences travel on the roller coaster of emotions that love often represents in the real world.  And if for some reason you find the entire movie utterly horrendous, I guarantee you enjoy at least one of the songs on its varied soundtrack.

So here’s to the hurt and pain that come along with love and to the movie that accurately represents the downs as well as the ups of romance!