First Published via HUB Magazine when I was Culture Editor.

Date Published: 24th March 2023.

From the director who simultaneously directed both the best Spider-Man and the worst Spider-Man film comes the rom-com of the decade, Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summer. The film is non-chronological, so the audience watches the love story knowing it ends badly and cuts in between the present and the past. Hopeless Romantic Tom (Joseph Gordan-Levitt) meets non-commitment, manic pixie dream girl Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and believes she is The One he has been searching for.

(500) Days of Summer is a cautionary tale about the idea of finding the one. The whole concept is a selfish way of thinking, and it can only lead to disappointment. While the film implies that it is Summer’s fault the relationship didn’t work, it is the intense pressure Tom puts upon himself and Summer to be the one.

As no result of her own, Summer falls into the category of a manic pixie girl. She is seen in many films with a male protagonist. Examples include Scott Pilgrim vs the World (Edgar Wright), Her (Spike Jonze) and Paper Towns (Jake Schreier). The manic pixie girl is a reductive delusion created by the male fantasy of childlike playfulness, somewhat tomboyish but hot. If he likes cars, she is Megan Fox in Transformers. If he is uptight, she’s Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly, and if he wants The Smiths, she’s Zooey Deschanel.

The choice of The Smith songs is interesting, using both ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I want’ and ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’. The use of these songs sets up Tom as a hopeless, yet very needy romantic. It always mirrors the way Tom feels about Summer. Even though she clearly states she does not want a relationship, he doesn’t care, and he has placed her on a pedestal that she is now his home and reason for living.

The film’s colour palette also symbolises the failing relationship between Tom and Summer. In most of Tom’s scenes, he wears brown, which blends with his surroundings, whereas Summer predominately wears blue throughout, whether in a full skirt or just blue accessories.

Furthermore, 32 minutes after they have slept together, Tom has a dance number, and almost all the background dancers have some variation of blue. This could suggest Tom is both in Summer’s world, but as he still wears brown and beige, he does not belong in her world. This colour palette difference is most apparent at 47 minutes when they struggle to sleep. The warm tones of Tom clash with the cool blue tones of Summer. The expectations vs reality scene also uses the colour palette, and the expectations have more reds and browns in the background, as it is Tom’s fantasy.

The most phenomenal scene from this entire film is at 1:07:53 when ‘Hero’ by Regina Spektor begins playing, and the screen is split between expectations and reality shots. Using the song ‘Hero’ shows Tom believes he is the hero of this story, and that Summer is the villain by being engaged. Though the audience already knows that Tom is a hopeless romantic, this scene brings it hard to understand how much he has shaped Summer into being someone she isn’t, from small details of the expectations of an intimate dinner with red wine to the reality of a rooftop party with beer to the different people at the party. This infers that he doesn’t know all of Summer’s friends, as that doesn’t matter in his fantasy, and the red wine connotes a romantic side to Summer he has made up. Even the tiniest details in 1:09:32, the expectations have a shot of blurred lilies in the forefront, and the reality has roses. The moment the shot moves from expectations vs reality is when Tom sees the engagement ring. Marc Webb beautifully panels the camera from his face to circle around to his back to show Summer showing off her ring.

Similar to the expectations vs reality scene, there is a parallel at 13:45 and 57:46 where everything he loves about Summer turns into everything he hates about Summer. This implies Tom can easily change how he views things. Therefore, how he sees everything that happened with Summer is unreliable.

The directorial style reminds me of Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2014) in using old Hollywood film reel shots, two parallel shots, and characters breaking the fourth wall with a particular use of black and white film shots. This directorial style can symbolise Tom’s mindset of hopeless romanticism due to romance and old films. The repeated shots at 1:10:00 are also very Wes Anderson style. Obviously, this film came before this mentioned Wes Anderson film.

The question the audience asks at the end when the Autumn count begins is whether Tom learnt his lesson. My theory is based on the first two minutes of the film. The narrator mentions Tom misread the ending of The Graduate by Mike Nichols (1967) and that he will also misread the ending with Summer. Instead of seeing his mistake of trying to find the one through shared interests, he sees it as misplacing the wrong girl as the wrong. If you haven’t seen The Graduate, in the last scene, Ben (Dustin Hoffman) and Elaine (Katharine Ross) escape Elaine’s wedding and are on the bus. Their facial expressions quickly change from happiness to melancholy as the doubts settle in.

In conclusion, (500) Days of Summer is a must-watch for all rom-com fans and hopeless romantics to rebalance themselves.

References-

Anderson, Wes. The Grand Budapest Hotel. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2014. 

Bay, Michael. Transformers. DreamWorks Pictures, 2007. 

Hamburg, John. Along Came Polly. Jersey Films, 2004. 

Jonze, Spike. Her. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2013. 

Schreier, Jake. Paper Towns. Fox 2000 Pictures, 2015. 

Nichols, Mike. The Graduate. Lawrence Turman Films, 1967. 

Webb, Marc. (500) Days of Summer. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2009. 

Webb, Marc. The Amazing Spider-Man. Columbia Pictures, 2012. 

Webb, Marc. The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Columbia Pictures, 2014. 

Wright, Edgar. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Universal Pictures, 2010.