Average Summer

(500) Days of Summer (Fox)
Although debut director Marc Webb tries hard to make (500) Days of Summer as unwatchable as Away We Go, he’s blessed with much better actors in the leads, and consequently the movie doesn’t grate on the nerves. Rather, it gets by on the charm of Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who make an attractive couple worth rooting for even though they are doomed from the start. Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt compensate for the too-cutesy quirkiness that Webb and writers Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter cram their movie with, including an embarrassing song-and-dance number, unnecessary clips from The Graduate and a “clever” ending that should have been cut from the script’s first draft. And jabs at the greeting-card industry are like shooting fish in a barrel. But the stars nearly make one forget all that’s wrong with (500) Days of Summer, which has been given a good though not stellar visual treatment on Blu-ray. Among the usual extras (commentary, deleted scenes, a music video, audition tapes), there’s a Blu-ray exclusive, a half-hour making-of featurette.
originally posted on filmfestivaltraveler.com