Breakin Up

Last night Amy and I watched 500 Days of Summer. I was surprised at how much I had forgotten about the movie. I was also surprised by just how good the movie is at depicting the ups and downs of a largely one-sided relationship.

I love the method of story-telling in the film. I love both of the actors: Joseph Gordon Levitt is just always so good and Zooey is just perfect as the sometimes interested, but often distant not-quite-girlfriend. She's very selfish, but he's foolish for falling so helplessly. And the soundtrack is just perfect. Always, always love that.

As the movie proceeds, you get a non-linear story of what their relationship is like, jumping between different days, and early on he ruminates largely on the good parts, glossing over the many deficiencies that his relationship had, which doesn't really come until the end.

Without revealing too much (although I'd be surprised if anyone reading this hasn't seen that movie yet), the movie ends on an positive note, which makes it easier to revisit the movie because it doesn't leave the sour taste of disappointment with the viewer.

Mostly, it just made me really glad to be done with the dating part of my life and having to cope with the highs of potential and possibility, only to be met by the crushing agony of despair and dejection. I really am glad for the experiences that I had, and I think going through real, soul-crushing heartache is good because it gives you so much depth, I'm glad that whatever kinds of difficulties that are yet to come my way don't have to be of that variety.

Breaking up is just hard to do.

Lots of great scenes, but I'll just leave you with this one. I love how happy it is: