We never remember in chronological order, especially when were going back over a failed romance. We start near the end, and then hop around between the times that were good and the times that left pain. People always say start at the beginning, but we didnt know at the time it was the beginning. (500) Days of Summer is a movie that works that way.

Some say theyre annoyed by the way it begins on day 488 or whatever and then jumps around, providing utterly unhelpful data labels: Day 1, Day 249. Movies are supposed to reassure us that events unfold in an orderly procession. But Tom remembers Summer as a series of joys and bafflements. What kind of woman likes you perfectly sincerely and has no one else in her life but is NOT interested in ever getting married?

Zooey Deschanel is a good choice to play such a woman. I cant imagine her playing a clinging vine. Too ornery. As Summer, she sees Tom with a level gaze and is who she is. Its Toms bad luck she is sweet and smart and beautiful its not an act. She is always scrupulously honest with him. She is her own person, and Tom cant have her. Have you known someone like that? In romance, we believe what we want to believe. Thats the reason (500) Days of Summer is so appealing.

Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is in love with Summer from the moment he sees her. His thoughts on love may not run as deeply as, say, those of the Romantic Poets. He writes greeting cards, and you suspect he may believe his own cards. Its amazing people get paid for a job like that. I could do it: Love is a rose, and you are its petals. Summer is his new … assistant? He needs an assistant in this job? She likes his looks and makes her move one day over the Xerox machine.

Can he accept that she simply likes him for now, not for forever? The movie, which is a delightful comedy, alive with invention, is about Tom wrestling with that reality. The director, Marc Webb, seems to be casting about for templates from other movies to help him tell this story; thats not desperation, but playfulness. Theres a little black-and-white, a little musical number, a little Fellini, which is always helpful in evoking a man in the act of yearning. Tom spends this movie in the emotional quandary of Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita, his hand always outstretched toward his inaccessible fantasies.

Summer remains mysterious all through the film, perhaps because we persist with Tom in expecting her to cave in. When we realize she is not required to in this movie because its not playing by the Hollywood rules, we perk up; anything could happen. The kaleidoscopic time structure breaks the shackles of the three-act grid and thrashes about with the freedom of romantic confusion.

One thing men love is to instruct women. If a woman wants to enchant a man, she is wise to play his pupil. Men fall for this. Tom set out in life to be an architect, not a poet of greeting cards. He and Summer share the same favorite view of Los Angeles (one you may not have seen before), and he conducts for her an architectural tour. This is fun not because we get to see wonderful buildings, but because so rarely in the movies do we find characters arguing for their aesthetic values. What does your average character played by an A-list star believe about truth and beauty? Has Jason Bourne ever gone to a museum on his day off?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has acted in a lot of movies, ranging from one of the Halloween sequels to the indie gem Brick. He comes into focus here playing a believable, likable guy, hopeful, easily disappointed, a little Tom Hanksian. He is strong enough to expect love, weak enough to be hurt. Zooey Deschanel evokes that ability in some women to madden you with admiration while never seeming to give it the slightest thought. She also had that quality in the overlooked Gigantic (2008), although the movies peculiar supporting characters obscured it.

Tom opens the film by announcing it will not be your typical love story. Are you like me, and when you realize a movie is on autopilot you get impatient with it? How long can the characters pretend they dont know how the story will end? Here is a rare movie that begins by telling us how it will end and is about how the hero has no idea why.