Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) works in an industry where revealing your emotions is de riguer--he is a greeting card copywriter--and is convinced that new employee Summer (Zooey Deschanel) is the girl for him. The film asks what could happen if love at first sight is one-sided and recounts their relationship over 500 days through Tom's point of view.
Despite Summer's assertion that she doesn't believe in love and has no interest in having a relationship, she does date him. The film flips back and forth in time, before and after their breakup, to the fun times when they play house at an Ikea store or watch crappy monster movies, and the mopey times when she feels he is smothering her and missing all the signals in her body language that the relationship has already failed.
Although Tom is good at what he does, his passion is to be an architect. In his depression he feels greeting cards actually create a distance and don't allow people to express their true feelings, so diverts his energy back to architecture.
The film doesn't take itself or its characters too seriously even up to the end of the film, but I wished Tom's depression got a little darker or that Summer was a teensy more sympathetic/tearful at their last conversation.
The two leads are a cute/sweet/adorable--but nicely so. Deschanel especially is more agreeable and lively than I've seen her in recent parts (I need to reach back to Mumford to find a part I liked her in), and Gordon-Levitt is good/great as in everything he's in, he never disappoints.
The scenery and soundtrack has a very vintage East Coast feel to it, despite taking place in L.A. Although as a viewer I say, Summer, you're a dolt if a nice guy like Tom is not your "perfect" guy--her comments to him at the end are just what she feels is true for her and you can't hate her too much. A more cheerful companion piece to Chasing Amy, another movie about unrequited love from the guy's point of view.
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