Still from "500 Days of Summer"

For years, we've watched the same movie over and over, repackaged under different titles and interchangeable shiny plastic stars. Call it "How to Lose a Guy at My Big Fat Alabama Runaway Wedding," starring American sweetheart Julia Kate Witherspoon and the dashing Matthew Hugh Gere. For years, we've watched these silicone queens and kings of Hollywood meet cute, fall in love, fight, stare forlornly from a rainy street at a happy couple kissing in the cafe window, realize they've made a terrible mistake, and finally - thrillingly - reunite. This film, watched on repeat ad nauseam (emphasis on the nauseam), has cinematically shaped and refined an entire generation's notion of romance - and in the process, royally effed us up.

"It's these cards," moans Tom, the heartbroken hero of the new "500 Days of Summer," of his company's schmaltzy greeting cards. "It's these cards, and the pop songs, and the movies. They are responsible for the lie." The lie in question is the one perpetuated by the formulaic rom-com described above - the one that says that love and romance, in its messy real-life incarnation, in any way resembles the sickly-sweet plotline of PG-13 movies.

Thank God "500 Days of Summer" is not your typical PG-13 movie.

Still from"500 Days of Summer"

Why it's taken so long for a film like this to break through to the mainstream is beyond me. I have seen a traumatic number of Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey films, and I can say with conviction that there will never be a romantic plotline they star in that will in any way capture my experiences (or the experiences of anyone else living on Earth) in matters of love. Treasure hunters? Magazine exposes? Catfights over bridal veils? What planet are these people from?

"Annie Hall" is the first film I remember seeing that gave me hope for romantic veracity in cinema. "The Graduate" was close behind. More recently, self-aware twentysomethings longing for a spark of recognition in their romantic fare have had "Garden State," "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist," and now, "500 Days of Summer." This last one is not, as some reviewers have suggested, "Annie Hall" for a modern generation - that title still belongs to "Annie Hall." But it does, as "Garden State" and "Nick & Norah" did, get closer than any of its genre peers to capturing the coffee-shop heartbreak, the pseudo-intellectual banter and dizzying excitement of young romance that's a seemingly inescapable rite of passage for the pre-marital set.

As the movie's opening narration attests, "500 Days of Summer" is not a love story. Or if it is, it is a story of (mostly) unrequited love. But therein lies the bite - that's everyone's love story. There won't be a male watching this movie who won't be reminded of some blithe ingénue of his youth, idealized in retrospection, who tormented him with the possibility of fulfillment before slipping inexorably away. There won't be a female watching who won't be reminded of some perfectly loveable guy, one who worshipped her every move, whom she casually brushed aside because the whole thing was too easy and boring and nice, and because she knew deep down that love that blind could not - should not - last.

Still from "500 Days of Summer"

Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are a perfect match for this kind of hyper-acute indie angst: he the Hollywood outsider starring in underground breakouts like "The Lookout" and "Brick," she the just-aloof-enough gamine who's mesmerized hipsters everywhere with her inscrutable smile and melancholy musical duets with M. Ward. The two dazzle on screen, skating through the script's witty exchanges and shuffled timeline with comfortable charisma. The narrator informs us that Levitt's Tom "grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one." (A belief, he adds, which "stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total misreading of the movie 'The Graduate.'") Deschanel's Summer has no such enchantment with romance, responding incredulously to Tom's question about falling in love: "You believe in that?" (Defensive, Tom replies: "It's love. It's not Santa Clause.")

It's clear from the beginning these two will not live happily ever after. But, as with all memorable romances, it's the journey - not the destination - that makes their story compelling. It's hard not to adore a film whose characters meet over a shared love of the Smiths, who visit IKEA pretending to be a married couple living in the store's furnished rooms, who discuss architecture and Sid Vicious and romantic disillusionment with equal agility.

Screenwriters of Hollywood, take note: This is where the heart of intelligent twentysomething romance lies. Though studios may take a majority of this generation hostage with ridiculous confectionery banality, they can't get all of us. In spite of early attempts to wring every drop of creativity and individualism and amorous authenticity out of America's moviegoers, there are still stubborn insurgents who refuse to go down without a fight. And for those holding out for something better - for something honest - there are films like "500 Days of Summer."

See it with someone you love… if you dare.

"500 Days of Summer" is playing now through August 20. For ticket information and showtimes, click here.