Mope n' twee: SFIFF 52's second weekendBy Lynn Rapoport. Read Lynn's report from the first SFIFF weekend here, and Natalie Gregory's review of SFIFF flick Crude here.
Parked a little ways past the midway point in the SFIFF calendar, the fest’s official centerpiece film, the romantic comedy 500 Days of Summer, packed the Sundance Kabuki’s main house on Saturday night, with most of the appreciative audience lingering for the post-screening Q&A with director Marc Webb and stars Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. (The latter set a lighter tone, or perhaps just startled audience members, by adopting a Ministry of Silly Walks stride and monster-metal voice for the pre-screening introductions.)
Eternal Summer of the spotless mind?
In Webb’s film (his first feature, from a screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, also in attendance), a luminous girl and an adorable boy embark on an ill-defined romance, borne along on the shared sound waves of mope rock and twee pop -- and less evenly distributed amounts of infatuation. An oft-told tale, yes, but here the verbs get jumbled, so that capsize comes before embark, with drift, founder, and run aground also surfacing in an unpredictable order. The irresolute, wandering narrative playfully mimics the pathways of ungovernable memory -- in this case the fallible recall of Gordon-Levitt’s character, Tom. As Webb told the audience afterward, he was aiming to depict a “subjective reality,” constructed after the fact of a relationship, wherein chunks of the story are misplaced or studiously avoided. Flipping backward and forward through the title’s 500 days, the film gives an impressionistic picture of a period of romance, engagingly enjoyed and suffered through by its protagonist.
Summer's Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel in happier times.
A Network-style outburst by the latter character on the subject of greeting cards, love songs, and other aspects of pop culture inspired an audience member to ask Gordon-Levitt about his role in the film industry’s manufacturing of fantasies. The actor’s (partial) response: “That’s why I want to make good movies.” And indeed, 500 Days is a romantic comedy capable of restoring to jaded viewers (and reviewers) a degree of faith in and enjoyment of the genre.
P.S. A couple less-playful recommendations for the final days of the fest: On Tuesday, The Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong’s anxiety-provoking, absorbing look -- part document, part fiction, and not without its own dire brand of whimsy -- at a possible future for the planet, resulting from our current actions and inaction; and Thursday evening’s Bosnia and Herzegovina-set first feature Snow, directed by Aida Begic, about a tiny village of women and children struggling through the day-to-day aftermath of civil war and genocide.
The San Francisco International Film Festival continues through Thurs/7.
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