(500) Days of Summer, Marc Webb

The opening scene of (500) Days of Summer made us laugh. Twice. And we didn't stop laughing.  That's pretty good.  

In fact, this very good romantic comedy hits just the right balance between romance and comedy.  The laughs don't come from absurd situations, but from recognizably familiar ones.  And the romance don't develop from sentimentally but from an ironic examination of the ways our culture cultivates romantic expectations.  

The film's ironic sensibility extends to its post-modern pastiche of genres and references.  Clearly set late in the twenty-first century's first decade, it incorporates Ikea, Wii, coffee shops, and cell phone conversations as normal aspects of our culture without making the plot depend upon them.   If any cultural phenomenon generate the narrative, it's references to film and music. In addition to the central reference to The Graduate, techniques borrowed from post-war European art film, Bollywood musicals, and documentaries are incorporated into the film.  Rather than making the movie self-important or pretentious, these meta-moments add to the film's self-mocking humor--and make it easy for the audience to accept the hero's enlightenment on day 500.

All in all, (500) is a delightful, clever film.

Highly recommend.