500 Days of Summer (2009) : by Marc Webb

A critique on
500 Days of Summer (2009)

By Marc Webb
500 Days of Summer, directed by Marc Webb, isn’t your typical romantic comedy.
Right from the opening scene, the narrator openly tells you that this isn’t a love story,
subverting expectations set by the very first scene of the movie, where our protagonist,
Tom Hansen, a greeting-card writer, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is sitting by the
bench with the titular Summer Finn, played by Zooey Deschanel. What follows is an hour-
and-a-half-long journey filled with ups and downs as we navigate Tom and Summer’s
"relationship". ultimately ending the same way it started: with the two of them sitting on
the same park bench and Summer being married to a different person, but not the person
we have seen her with throughout the film.
The actual plot of the story starts with Tom getting dumped by his then girlfriend,
Summer. The plot progresses through retellings of the 500 days they spent together. The
retellings are out of sequence, frequently bouncing around days, which can come off as
confusing, but all the scenes eventually have a payoff. One of the first scenes of the film
is a great example of this. It was confusing at first because it shows Tom and Summer
breaking up, but in the scene prior, it shows the two of them holding hands with a ring on
Summer’s finger. But a detail that I realized upon second viewing is that we only ever see
Summer’s hand in the scene, Tom’s hand is covered by Summer's, which hints at the
ending of the movie, where Summer is engaged to another man.
Another aspect of the film that I love is the stylization. In some scenes, the aspect ratio
will change, this is done when the scene doesn’t fit the progression of the story or when
the narrator tells us something, so a different aspect ratio is used so we know that this is
separate from the flow of the story. The title cards used when showing the 500 days are
also a unique touch. The title card is composed of a tree on the left and the day number
on the right, and the tree is either blooming, full of life, or wilting to match the mood of the
scene. Animation is also present in the movie but is very rarely used. It’s only used to
drive home the emotions that a character feels in a scene. The scene when Tom
supposedly beds Summer is followed by a choreographed dance number filled with
people and animation, emphasizing how happy he is, while the scene after Tom sees
Summer’s engagement ring is empty and Tom is all alone in a dark street with the world
getting animated in grayscale and eventually being erased. I love this because this is
what Tom feels like, and the animation helps us understand exactly how happy or sad he
is.
OBCEMEA, CARL ANGELO R. | | SHSSTEM 11-01

But the two main characters are really what make the story. This is a story about Tom,
and at first glance, the audience would very likely sympathize with him, and why wouldn’t
we? He is the typical nice guy, a hopeless romantic who believes in the idea of destiny or
"the one." But like most nice guys in film, he is only nice because of the idea of a reward,
and in this case the reward is a relationship with Summer, which she very openly
discusses that she doesn’t want. Even after this, Tom still forces Summer into his idea of
"the one," being more in love with the idea of her than the actual person. A good example
of this is when the same montage of Summer appears twice in the film. The first is set in
a day where they’re still together, but the way he describes it will drastically change from
loving Summer’s quirky features to "I hate her crooked teeth, I hate her 1960s haircut, I
hate her knobby knees, I hate her cockroach-shaped splotch on her neck, I hate the way
she smacks her lips before she talks, and I hate the way she sounds when she laughs."
His attraction is often superficial and surface-level, frequently looking at their similarities,
her interests, or her appearance and not focusing on who she is as a person. But a very
big part that someone has to understand when watching this movie is that it is narrated
by our protagonist, Tom, which explains the out of sequence nature of the story.
Tom isn’t the only flawed character; the antagonist of the movie also has her fair share of
faults. Summer Finn is a bland and boring love interest. She isn’t fleshed out, and we
don’t really get to know much about her, aside from the fact that her parents aren’t
together, which explains her attitude towards love. Also, the breakup at the beginning and
the twist at the end, which eventually had a payoff, came out of nowhere. To add on,
Zooey Deschanel’s performance is very one-dimensional, with a monotone voice and an
unenthusiastic tone. But this may very well be intentional; after all, this is a story about
Tom, and he is narrating; what we may be seeing is only a part of Summer and what he
sees in her.
Though it has its flaws, 500 Days of Summer is a tremendous subversion of the
traditional rom-com, offering a realistic view on relationships, their complexity, and how
they’re not just as simple as both of you liking the Smiths. The stylistic choices add to its
appeal and are a part of why it is as great as it is. Though the gut-wrenching dialogue
Tom and Summer share at the end of the film may have tugged at more than a few
heartstrings, the ending scene with Tom and Autumn gives us a glimmer of hope that
even though Summer has ended, a new season will always come and life will always go
on.
OBCEMEA, CARL ANGELO R. | | SHSSTEM 11-01

500 Days of Summer (2009) : by Marc Webb

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500 Days of Summer (2009) : by Marc Webb

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A critique on

500 Days of Summer (2009)

OBCEMEA, CARL ANGELO R. | | SHSSTEM 11-01

OBCEMEA, CARL ANGELO R. | | SHSSTEM 11-01

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