From the moment it takes frame on the screen, it’s apparent that ‘500 Days of Summer’ is not your typical romantic comedy. Instead, the methodical story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love, boy gets girl. ‘500 Days of Summer’ is a film that’s straightforward, built with honest characters and dependent on its real-life scenarios where not all relationships end happily.

For Tom Hansen, ‘500 Days of Summer’ is his story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl and the girl doesn’t love him back. However, the girl, Summer Finn, forms a heavily emotional relationship with Tom at the unknowing expense of his own emotions. As he delivers the story through a fragmented recollection, Tom looks back on his experiences, good and bad, while trying to make sense of it all.

To assist in realistically relaying these experiences to an audience, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel lend their talents to the lead roles of Tom and Summer. Not only do they perform their roles with an honest charisma together, but they carry a striking relation to reality that nearly impossible for the typical genre dwellers to capture.

What gives ‘500 Days of Summer’ its unique visionary edge is its questioning director. As if he is speaking directly through the mouth of his main character, Marc Webb utilizes this creative film to answer his own questions about the troubles of life and relationships. He provokes the questions of bad relationships and if they serve a greater purpose than we’re aware of.

Even though it’s a genre that typically targets a select audience, ‘500 Days of Summer’ is the romantic comedy that almost everyone can relate to. Instead of being a story that creates an illusion to momentarily suppress the real life troubles of its audience, here’s one that gives answers which viewers can benefit from within their own lives.