“500 Days of Summer” uses a nifty device to document a love affair between two L.A. office drones. The film ticks off a few dozen key dates, out of order, to achieve an ironic detachment functioning as necessary camouflage for a trite, dimwitted romance in which the audience guesses the outcome long before Tom (a likable, if dumb, copywriter played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt). This is less in the comic spirit of “Annie Hall” and more in the vein of Charlie Kaufman, who re-upholsters clichés in the synthetic skins of postmodernism. Despite the unusual structure, the filmmakers cannot disguise the fact that ‘500 Days’ is yet another stultifying tale of a sensitive guy struggling with post-college disillusionment.

See it for the shots of downtown L.A. and for the effortlessly cute Zooey Deschanel, who always seems to be staring out day-dreamingly from underneath a crop of bushy bangs yet possesses a nimble intelligence surpassing both Tom’s and, really, the film’s as well. There’s an obvious degree of superficiality here, a sumptious catalog of hipster aesthetics—if Summer’s a real Smiths fan, as she tells Tom, I’m Morrissey’s cat—but it’s forgivable. The film’s heart is as squelchy and precious as a twee indiepop ballad but it’s more or less in the right place.