(500) Days of Summer

There are two disclaimers at the beginning of the charming "(500) Days of Summer," which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom, a greeting card writer madly in love with an unappreciative woman named Summer (Zooey Deschanel). The first is that any resemblance to any real person is intentional: "Especially you, Jenny Beckman." The second is a directive to the audience: "You should know up front, this is not a love story."

Actually, it is a love story. It just might not be the kind we're used to on the screen, where everything works out between the principals. But it is very familiar to anyone who has spent any significant portion of his or her adult life single and attempting to be otherwise. Director Marc Webb and screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (who have "The Pink Panther 2" on their résumés and not much else) aren't groundbreakers -- there are a lot of similarities to "High Fidelity" and "Reality Bites" -- so it would be a stretch to call "(500) Days of Summer" groundbreaking. But compared to typical romantic comedy fare, it feels fresh. For one thing, we're on the guy's side.

Tom and Summer have a strong, mutual attraction on a physical level. On an emotional level, from the beginning, he's much more the smitten one, convinced that she's "the one." What comes between them is her alleged perspective on relationships: That is, she doesn't believe in love. She doesn't believe in commitments. As Tom's dopey but nice friend (Geoffrey Arend) says upon hearing this, with disbelief and more than a little admiration: "You're a guy!" She believes in having a grand old time together, whether it be in bed or running around Ikea on the weekend. Deschanel almost always plays girls (not quite women) who are a pleasant bundle of contradictions. They tend to be wide-eyed but wise, innocent but worldly, eccentric but girl-next-door types. And typically, they are irresistibly adorable (see: "Elf," "Bridge to Terabithia," "All the Real Girls," "Almost Famous").

This time, Deschanel is all those things but also fairly detestable, and it is surprisingly fun to hate her. Tom can't really have her, and she announces that regularly, keeping him at arm's length in a patronizing, almost a sisterly way. Meanwhile, he's a puppy dog, so hopelessly devoted that he has to keep going to his preternaturally wise little sister for advice (Misstep 101: Stay away from J. D. Salinger references; they're too hard to pull off without being cloying). Waking up after his first night with Summer, Tom walks to work through the streets of Los Angeles, singing and dancing to Hall & Oates' "You Make My Dreams." Los Angeles is shot in such an impossibly bucolic light it's unrecognizable for the first half of the movie. (There may be a lesson there about judging books by their covers, or maybe Webb just loves L.A.) If Summer doesn't want to be with him long-term, then there must be something she likes. Maybe just the power of being in charge, or being admired. That's how it seems, particularly when she pulls an astoundingly callous stunt near the end of the movie.

But it could be that I'm just defensive of Tom. Gordon-Levitt typically takes on more "serious" roles, the kind where he can be a character actor even while he's wearing the leading man's shoes (as in the underappreciated "The Lookout"). This is his first John Cusack moment, and it is surprising to see how adept he is at it. There's a wonderful scene early in his courtship of Summer when he's singing karaoke, with a big, bashful, drunk, happy smile smeared across his face. He's vulnerable and fun and cute, and you think Summer simply has to fall in love with him.

But she doesn't, and that's what makes "(500) Days of Summer" such a distinctive little movie. It's flawed: The push Summer gives to Tom's interest in architecture and Tom's first stirrings of post-Summer romantic life are constructs borrowed from lesser movies, easy outs in plotting. But it's perversely fun to remain uncertain about the outcome of this relationship, in much the same way we might keep turning over a dead relationship of our own in our mind, trying to figure out what went wrong. Is Summer at fault for getting involved when Tom was obviously a true romantic just waiting to get his heart stomped on? She could have just left him alone. Or are we supposed to blame Tom for not heeding the obvious signs? Audiences will likely split on these matters based on the roles they themselves typically play in relationships. I nominate "(500) Days of Summer" for the best third-date movie of the year; watching it together could be like lowering a canary into a romantic coal mine.