10. (500) Days of Summer
(500) Days of Summer is an anomaly in the modern romantic comedy world. The film is completely through the perspective of a male going through a break up and accurately portrays it too. The main criticism of this film, and this film has received quite a backlash since its debut, is the fact that Zooey Deschanels character seems to follow the trope of the manic pixie dream girl in which the romantic interest is cute, quirky and changes the males previously brooding and depressed male protagonist. But, that is ignoring the complexity of this film. Like I said, this is through the male perspective after a break up. Except for about a scene or two, Joseph Gordon-Levitts character is always in the scene. He is seeing Summer through his eyes thus the disjointed chronology. During a breakup, you reflect upon your relationship and it starts in cycles. You see all the things that were perfect about this woman. Then all the things that went wrong and so on and so forth. This is the first film that shows that in my memory and the fact that they do not get together at the end is invariably satisfying as, like most relationships with a little distance to them, they did not belong together. It does not succumb to a deus ex machina ending and shoehorns in a happy ending, just that he moves on.