Earlier this week I watched (500) Days Of Summer for the first time.

I found myself jumping somewhere between “I’m too old for this”-ism and sheer boredom. Is it supposed to be new and innovative that the girl’s the one not hugely into the relationship? Or the whole non-linear movie thing? I’m looking for depth in either of them but never got there. It’s one thing to like indie music and literature because of its intellectual heft, but it’s another to let yourself be defined entirely by it. There’s more to the world than The Smiths or Oscar Wilde.

And that’s a good theme for the movie as a whole – it’s like that Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing, but worse. We have a movie with two secondary characters who can’t seem to stand on their own. All the while I just want to slap either (or both) of them up the head because they both hold on to intrinsically misguided notions of what love and life are or should be all the while ignoring what’s going on around them.

Of the two secondary characters, I’m annoyed that Zooey really doesn’t exist at all as a person absent of her relationship with JGL. Does she have any goals or dreams on her own? At least the girl he meets later down the line is interviewing and has some kind of drive and ambition.

And let’s not even get started with JGL’s character. Ugh. Live your life expecting that a girl’s going to swoop in and make everything better and you’ll spend a life missing out on the wonder that is standing up on your own. And that’s no good, guy. That’s no good at all.

Things I did like:

  • The little sister? The one who’s supposed to be Phoebe to his Holden Caulfield? She’s pretty awesome (but then, our selfless advice giver always is, isn’t she?). She also is one of the few people who distinguishes between the grammatically correct “were” (as opposed to “was”) when speaking in hypotheticals.
  • The camera work was pretty cool. I like seeing an LA that’s not just the LA we see in most (all) movies.
  • Minka Kelly is absurdly pretty. That said, her acting is painful.
  • Apropos of nothing in the movie, but this did get me thinking: I totally couldn’t date someone who doesn’t (or can’t) eat gluten, dairy, eggs, or meat. Maaaaybe I’d be willing to give up one of the four, but not even Minka Kelly could get me to give up all four.
  • But seriously. “So so so very pretty”

  • Apparently Zooey’s character meets her husband because she was reading Dorian Gray. This speaks poorly to the literary character and interests of a) Zooey, b) her movie-husband, and c) JGL.
  • But Then, THEN, the sassy lady lawyer from Bones showed up! And I spent the rest of the movie thinking about a real grown-up relationship. One that is built on independence, trust, and rationality: Booth and Brennan.

  • Shirley from Community is the replacement secretary! Awesomesauce! She showed up at the hour mark. It made me spend the rest of the movie thinking about another relationship that consists of growth, trust, and realistic expectations: Abed and Troy.

Seriously, though. Troy and Abed? Booth and Brennan? You know what makes them real and better examples of what a relationship – romantic or otherwise – is supposed to be all about? They view relationships as as something complementary, not overwhelming or overshadowing, to their lives. They are very much individuals – with their own friends, their own ambitions, their own stories – who choose to trust and grow with their respective counterparts.

Also? They rap together.