Maybe if you said you were an alien, she would have stuck around: "(500) Days of Summer"

I'd like to think not much surprises me. Not sure if it's my inherent street smarts -- those suburban cul-de-sacs weren't going to rule themselves -- or my infinitely open mind. Either way, I'm rarely caught off-guard. But I'll say this: I'm a little shocked that I'm becoming a Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan.

I mean, you saw this kid's hair in "3rd Rock from the Sun," right? Oh, man ... even though I didn't watch the show, that cut was enough to make me curse his very being. But lo, the junior alien visitor has grown up to become a Capital-A Actor. You may have seen his turn in "Stop-Loss," but where he really dazzled was in the little-seen film "The Lookout." I seem to recall raves for the earlier "Mysterious Skin," too, and we all know he's due for an Oscar nom for becoming the Cobra Commander in "G.I. Joe."

Kidding, of course. No, when it comes to last year, Gordon-Levitt's plaudits were for "(500) Days of Summer," the out-of-order tale of how he fell into and out of love with a girl named Summer (Zooey Deschanel) over the course of almost 17 months. The style is the story here, with viewers bounced back and forth in time to show the highs and lows of our hero's courtship.

The basics: Tom, a greeting card writer, believes in love and falls for Summer at first sight. Summer, a secretary at the same company, is more casual -- down for some fun with an interesting guy but not long-term material. Told in a linear format, this could be close to fatal. I mean, who cares, right?

Alas, we move in anything but a straight line, with director Marc Webb mixing and matching days from the span of the relationship to show -- sometimes bluntly and coldly -- how what once was good can turn kind of bad. If it sounds too cute, it almost is. And watching this requires some focus, or at least quick recall. I'll admit to patting myself on the back when dialogue from an earlier scene came up in a different context several scenes/days later.

Despite all that, I think it worked well. I guess I come down on "clever" vs. "cute," in large part because the two leads roll with it. Deschanel does her big-eyed thing and adds a dollop of bitchiness. Gordon-Levitt is better, playing a perfectly normal guy whose emotions are all over the map. The dance scene after he gets together with Summer is pretty funny -- the face winking back at him in the store window killed me -- and the down-in-the-dumps stuff seemed spot-on, too.

Throw in a great soundtrack and an ending that made me laugh out loud -- but likely made critics cringe -- and "Summer" was a success. Now if you're excuse me, I've got some old mix tapes to listen to while leafing through ex-girlfriend photos. It really is true ... love will tear us apart.