Watched “500 days of Summer”, which I have decided is not nearly such a good film as it thinks it is. I think it tries to be like “When Harry met Sally” and isn’t: it tries to bring off an ending like “The Graduate”, and doesn’t. I didn’t like either of the main characters and Zooey Deschanel, who is usually delightfully wacky, is somewhat muted here.
It was a nice idea, perhaps, telling a story of a relationship that lasts 500 days by taking some of those days out of sequence and showing what happens. But for me it doesn’t work because the main characters are not likeable and because there really isn’t much of a relationship to work with: “When Harry met Sally” has two characters who clearly like each other, and the comic and romantic tension comes from them irritating each other, denying that they like each other – and finally realising that all this time they were falling in love. Nothing like that happens in “500 Days of Summer” – it’s a story of two self-involved characters, one of whom is in love and the other of whom says she never wants a relationship and then suddenly gets married (we don’t see the guy’s face.) It’s an odd film and I suspect it tries to be too clever.
The title is also, I assume, a reference to “500 days of Sodom”, though why, I don’t know.
Didn’t manage to write much of the novel yesterday. Must Try Harder today. Remind me to write about pile drivers. (Ah! Give that writer a really hot cup of tea and there’s no knowing what she can do.)*
Pile drivers? A thing I was given as a child with sausage-shaped bricks. You bash them in with a hammer and they come out the other end. My parents thought it would channel some of my aggression – I think they thought (when they ordered a girl) that they’d be getting a sweet little thing with curls, not a squat, square four-year-old with a terrible temper. Now I was going to write about this pile-driver in some symbolic way and I’ve forgotten what it was. Damn!
Good book swap at church last night (not Good Book swap – that would be of limited use). Took twenty or so books, came back with three, one of which I now realise I have already read (About a Boy). Now, there’s a quirky film which works well. Mark likes Nick Hornby. I think he’s good, albeit a bit “North-London-Guardian-reader.” I don’t approve of North London Guardian Readers: I live in the Midlands.
Woke early this morning but slept better.
Holly has an eye test today.
Kirk out
*Douglas Adams reference, in case you didn’t realise.
PS Holly’s eye test showed that she could do with glasses for “concentration work”. We are getting her some NHS ones which are not too bad. She expressed a desire for some cooler ones; whereupon I told her what NHS glasses used to be like.
Fortunately I never needed them as a girl.
Sarada Gray 