The feel-bad reality romcom

(500) Days of Summer traces the frivolity of early romance between Zooey Deschanel as Summer and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom to the distant coolness of love's decline. Photo / Supplied by Fox

This is not a love story," a voiceover warns, as Super-8 film of a young couple swoons across the screen. (500) Days of Summer is anti-love, a meta-romcom, which begins at the end of the pair's relationship and romanticises only the heartbreak of underhand rejection and the modern confusion of sex without commitment. "Nothing is meant to be," we discover.

Everything we've learnt from Sandra Bullock and Kate Hudson, from the last 15 minutes of every "girls' night in", is all wrong. "(500) Days is the first great cinematic romance of the Facebook generation," wrote one critic. "Emotion-porn," said another.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Tom, an aspiring architect whose job writing rhymes for greeting cards has dulled his belief in love; Zooey Deschanel is the boss's new assistant, the Summer in the title, whose huge blue eyes sink him instantly.

Their story slips forwards and back in time - we watch a playful kiss on day 28 turn into a petulant sulk on day 316.

A joke Summer giggles at weeks in only highlights their doomed love when Tom repeats it months later to eye rolls and silence. Their highs - a choreographed dance routine complete with animated bluebird, a hammy romp around Ikea - are high, their lows are deep pits dug from soft earth. Eye bags. Alcohol. A split-screen party scene, showing Tom's expectation, and the depressing reality.

"I've had my heart broken before," says Gordon-Levitt (whose studied sensitivity you'll remember from his childhood role in sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun). "Truly, truly broken. But when I look back at me in my heartbroken phase, it's pretty hilarious, because it felt so much more extreme than it really was. One of the things I love about (500) Days of Summer is that it doesn't make light of what we go through in romances, but it is honest about it and shows it for what it is, which is often profoundly funny."

The film, it's clear, is written by survivors. In 2001, co-writer Scott Neustadter was dumped, "hard". He moved from New York to London, met an amazing girl, was dumped again.

The film, he says, is the story of those relationships, "or at least how I remembered them afterwards. OK, fine, how I chose to remember them."

With his writing partner (once his intern) Michael Weber, he set out to build "an anatomy of a romance". Weber's priority was to keep the script as emotionally honest as possible.

"We've all been in the trenches of love, we've all gone through the highs and lows, so Scott and I felt that the only way to tell this story was to come at it from a completely real place," says Weber. "It was pretty interesting for us because Scott was just going through a break-up and I was in a long-term relationship, so we each brought a totally opposite perspective, living it and not living it, and I think that tension helped to bring out more of the comedy."

Neustadter says: "There are certain topics that romantic comedies always hint around and never really tackle directly.

"Questions such as: is there really such a thing as 'the one'? And if there is, what happens if you lose her?"

The indie film made 27 times its budget during its American opening weekend and got a standing ovation when it had its premiere at Sundance in January. It deserves to be a hit, if only for its very un-romcom lack of both Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Aniston.

This is the first feature film for music video director Marc Webb. On the phone from Los Angeles, he talks brilliantly about romance, youth and heartbreak. He's been up since 6am, watching Fiddler on the Roof.

"I love it! I love that it's about something! I love that it becomes an essay on an idea. Their idea is 'tradition'. Ours is 'love'. It's about happiness, and learning that you'll find it within yourself, rather than in the big blue eyes of the girl in the cubicle down the hall."

In his 30s, Webb admits all the cast and crew are hopelessly romantic and that all, in their teens and 20s, were "burnt", many by girls like Summer.

"By perfect girls. But of course there's no such thing. In Tom's eyes, Summer is perfection, but perfection has no depth. Summer's not a girl, she's a phase."

Music frames their story - Summer overhears the Smiths' mournful lyrics on Tom's iPod ("And if a double-decker bus/ Crashes into us/ To die by your side/ Is such a heavenly way to die") and the seed for their sticky romance is sown. The film is a cinematic mixtape of the contemporary lo-fi pop which, since the triumph of Juno (the films share a producer), has come to signal Sundance success.

There's knowing karaoke, and Belle and Sebastian lyrics written in a yearbook to define Summer, who brings to mind the stock character first pinpointed by US film critic Nathan Rabin - the "manic pixie dream girl".

She is, he wrote, "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures".

Manic pixie dream girls, as often played by Natalie Portman, do wacky dances to illustrate their eccentricity, and turn boys on to indie music, enriching their lives and eventually making them men.

While Deschanel's Summer is as whimsical as a traditional MPDG, the character rises above the cliche through her flaws. Deschanel was drawn to the role of this imagined "ideal". "Summer is such an interesting character because she's seen entirely from Tom's perspective as this ideal woman," she says, "when she's actually just a smart, interesting girl with her own problems."

She's perfect, but we see her only through Tom's eyes. And the qualities he projects on to her are what eventually breaks him.

"Yes, Summer has elements of the manic pixie dream girl - she is an immature view of a woman," says Webb. "She's Tom's view of a woman. He doesn't see her complexity and the consequence for him is heartbreak."

Webb sees the film as more of a coming-of-age story than a romcom.

"We arrive at a different conclusion, for one thing. Plus, most romantic comedies are more loyal to a formula than to emotional truth."

A film that exposes the scrofulous reality of romance must have Richard Curtis et al getting twitchy. No tearful kisses at airports? No happy ending?

What does (500) Days mean for the future of the romcom? What does it mean for the future of ... love?

"I wanted to make an unsentimental movie and an uncynical movie. In my mind, I wanted it to be something you could dance to. That's why we put a parenthesis in the title - it's like a pop song in movie form." It's not a big film, Webb admits.

"It's not about war or poverty. It's about 500 days in a young guy's relationship, but it's no less deserving of scrutiny. When your heart is first broken, it consumes you. And it's an emotion I wanted to make a movie about, before I forgot how it felt."

LOWDOWN

What: (500) Days of Summer
When and where: Opens at cinemas on Thursday
Also: See an extended interview with the film's female lead Zooey Deschanel in TimeOut on Thursday.

ODD COUPLES IN RECENT ROMANTIC PAIRINGS

Jarrod and Lily in Eagle vs Shark (2007). Lily (Loren Horsley) is a plain Jane hula hoop fanatic, Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) is an uber-computer nerd who makes strange homemade candles and reckons he's a stud. After Lily kicks butt on the game console, their on-off affair blossoms as they bond over their elaborate animal fancy-dress costumes

Juno and Bleeker in Juno (2008). Their relationship gets off to a bad start with an unwanted teen pregnancy, but, as this extraordinary coming-of-age tale unfolds, sassy and sarcastic Juno (Ellen Page) and geeky running-obsessive Bleeker (Michael Cera) become the most charming high school sweethearts in recent history.

Oskar and Eli in Let the Right One In (2009). Meek 12-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) falls for Eli (Lina Leandersson), the pale and interesting girl next door. The catch? She's a vampire. The relationship between these two young loners won this Swedish romantic horror film rave reviews.

Caden and Hazel in Synecdoche, New York (2009). Miserably married to an artist who ditches him for a life in Germany, theatre director Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) finds solace in an unconsummated relationship with his true sweetheart, Hazel (Samantha Morton), the box office girl. A captivating will-they/won't-they? relationship.

Wilson and Vivian in In Search of a Midnight Kiss (2008). "Misanthrope seeks misanthrope" reads the lonely hearts ad posted by recently dumped Wilson (Scoot McNairy) on New Year's Eve. So begins the 24-hour flirtation, depicted entirely in black and white, between Wilson and a surly blonde named Vivian (Sara Simmonds) as they escape loneliness amid the faded grandeur of LA's back streets.

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