(500) Days and the Fractured Narrative

Jay, a reader, writes to complain about what he calls "chopped-up" movies and what I would call a "fractured narrative," you know, movies that have beginnings, middles and ends but not in that order. (Think Pulp Fiction and Memento.)  For him, the latest offender is (500) Days of Summer. I very much enjoyed the film about an aspiring architect who begins the movie by telling us his relationship ended and that he doesn't know why, and then recalls, non-chronologically, the highs and lows of the affair the way one might recall it for a friend who wasn't around.