I saw this movie five times in the theater. I saw it in four different cities, that is how much I loved it. The poster for the film hangs in our apartment. I have seen the movie on DVD over 50 times, easily. I took this movie with me as a sub and showed it in classes where I was not left a lesson plan. During my students teaching I taught the movie during a short one week film unit. I have shown the movie to my yearbook class as a reward for finishing the yearbook, and this year I added the movie to my junior curriculum as part of a bigger film unit. The love I feel for this movie is deep. I think it is brilliant, and I try not to throw that word around loosely.
(500) Days of Summer concerns the relationship between Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) which spans 500 turbulent days. There is an omniscient narrator who tells us right off the bat that "This is a story of boy meets girl, but it is not a love story." From the very start of this film, we realize this is not going to be a traditional romantic comedy and it definitely is not. Tom believes Summer is the one from the moment he sees her. Summer very clearly states she is not interested in a relationship, and they become friends. Summer knows that Tom is into her, but he never fully says it because he just wants her in his life and because of that, it gets tricky when they start kissing, going on adorable dates to Ikea, and start having sex. Are they a couple or are they not a couple? Who knows? Clearly neither of them know. Tom believes they are, Summer maintains that they are just friends. This back and forth could get old quickly, but the great thing about the script is that the story unfolds in a non-linear fashion. We get the good mixed with the bad. We get the humor followed by the sadness. The film never lets us wallow in the sadness for very long and it never lets us celebrate the happiness for too long. It creates this wonderful blend of emotions and it is not afraid to smack us around with them. My favorite transition is from the morning after the first sex to the first day post break up.
One of the things I love about the movie is the narrative tricks. First off, the movie is told out of order, so we see the 500 days of this relationship as it jumps around in time. Happiness flips to sadness and back all in the span of a few minutes as we get cutaway shots showing what day we are about to watch. Then we have a droll voiced narrator weaving his way in and out of the story. He does not seem to care much what happens to the protagonist, but exists just to help us understand what it going on. The movie has a devastating animated sequence, black and white sequences, characters talking directly to the camera,and a full dance number. All of that is great, but there is one scene that sort of drives this movie to my favorites list. It is a scene to which every person can relate, I believe. As Tom goes to a party hosted by Summer, the film goes to a split screen and on one side we see Tom's expectations and on the other side we see the reality. This is after the break up, and after months of not seeing each other outside of a attending the same wedding, which led to the protagonist's renewed hope. His expectations and the reality are so grossly different that it hurts to watch them side by side. I have seen movies press forward with the expectations only to pull back and reveal it was in the character's head and then go forward with the reality, but to see them side by side just hurts. It is an achingly brilliant move on whomever decided to go that way. It is like that in the shooting script, but who knows if the director had input there. That scene will crush you because we have all done it. We have all seen what we want to happen in our heads, only to see reality go in a completely different direction. In a movie full of hilarious moments and sad moments, this scene is easily the most crushing. The scene even ends with the protagonist no longer a human being, but a sketch in one of his architectural creations as all of his surrounding are being erased to a sad poignant song.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are the leads, and share a breezy, yet commanding chemistry that leaves me wishing they would team up more often on film. Marc Webb was a music video director before this and the duo of screen writers, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber have gone on to write the screenplay for the John Green YA adaptations. The supporting actors all add to both the humor and heart of the film.
Another thing I love about this movie is the way it deconstructs not only the romantic comedy genre, but also the idea of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, I know there are people who I think misread this film as being wish fulfillment from Tom's POV, but it shows how POV is skewed. Summer is a full blown character with hopes and dreams, and Tom mistakenly looks for meaning through her. She is clear with him from the beginning, but he only sees what he wants to see. The film shines a light on how we construct our own narrative, and how we filter everything through our own lens, often times forgetting the people in our stories, are actually living their own stories. The film is as much about how we tell a story, as it is about telling the story. It is almost metatextual in that way.
The film also uses music to perfection. In a tranquil scene The Temper Trap's "Sweet Disposition" plays, then later in the film, when Summer and Tom reconnect, the song plays again, giving us the impression that things just may end up going well for the young couple. Many of my students even said they did not believe the narrator when he said it was not a love story because of this scene. They wanted to be believe because of how the mood was set up by the music, the lighting and how the two young people were framed together with the sunset in the back and flowers in the background. The movie features other great moments driven by music, but this is the one I come back to time and time again.
(500) Days of Summer will frustrate you, make you cry and make you laugh. I think, though, in the end, it gives you hope. It makes you believe in the search for true love, even though it hurts when it does not go your way. it deconstructs our idea of what a romantic comedy is supposed to be and it perfectly deconstructs the character tropes of the genre. It has a kick ass soundtrack that is made more kick ass by how each song is used in the film. The non-linear narrative technique serves the film in a variety of ways, but mostly it keeps the film from feeling too sad in the second half. The performances, direction, script and editing are all top notch. It does not over stay its welcome at a brisk 95 minutes and it leaves you feeling something. I will not say what you will be left feeling by it, but I do not know anyone who did not feel something when the film was over. half of my students hate me for playing it for them because it felt too real, but that was kind of the point. This is a movie that I know in twenty years I will still watching and enjoying, and I hope that if you have not seen the movie, this make you want to see it and I hope that if you have seen it, this gives you something new to think about.
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