A Medley In Film: (500) Days Of Summer

    A Medley in Film



Joseph: Well, I'd like to visit the moon

On a rocket ship high in the air

Zooey: Why don't you sit right down and stay awhile?

Marc: You're getting sadder, getting sadder, getting sadder, getting sadder.



THIS is how a typical conversation goes between the big shots of “(500) Days of Summer;” sometimes nonsensical, mostly obtuse, and mainly irreverent—just like the movie. If you want to make sense of all this however, then you should know these are actually song lyrics from the musical backgrounds of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel who star in the film, and Marc Webb who directs it. Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel alike have singles and albums released, Deschanel being part of the tandem She & Him. Marc Webb can also pull his weight in the field—he has directed a number of music videos, from Regina Spektor’s “Better” to the more pop-induced “Clumsy” by Fergie. As you can probably guess by now, “(500) Days of Summer” is a movie inextricably bound to music, particularly the era of “listening-to-oldies-in-the-20thcentury-is-unspokenly-cool”. Artists like The Smiths, Hall and Oates, and Simon & Garfunkel are prominent in the soundtrack, and the two main characters, Tom Hansen (Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Finn (Deschanel) are also wrapped up in this little bubble of the music culture.

The film embraces a number of scenes contained in this particular music bubble; the first being Tom Hansen’s surprise encounter with Summer Finn in the elevator when she begins to sing along to “There is a light that never goes out” by The Smiths blasting from his headphones. From that point on, he was smitten, and the story begins. Tom and Summer meet again when their entire office decides to go to a karaoke bar to let off some steam—she sings “Sugartown” by Nancy Sinatra, he “Here comes your man” by The Pixies. Going to record shops together ensues, lighthearted bickering over the underrated charm of Ringo Starr, and the unforgettable number where Tom dances to Hall and Oates’ “You make my dreams”, decidedly after Summer “made his dreams” come true. This particular scene is unfailingly cheeky, capturing Marc Webb’s experience in music direction to a T—birds from the Disney movies join Tom, not to mention the whole street of people he’s with, as he dances and clicks his heels together in what may only be presumed to be post-coital joy. However, there is one problem—Summer believes love to be a fantasy. And so the story reassesses itself, and is henceforth made even more captivating.

The sequence of the film is scattered to say the least, and is one that probably only Marc Webb could have pulled off. Albeit a bit confusing at first, the sequence actually helps the story along as it presents contrasting dualities, and provides comic relief as it illustrates humanity at its most ironic. I remember one scene where Tom gets into the elevator at work with a great big smile; sequence shifts to another time, and he gets down with the most awful, down-in-the-dumps stare. Apart from the disparate sequence technique, Marc Webb also employs other unique devices for the audience to place themselves in Tom’s shoes and to get a clearer, more honest grasp of the humanity in this film. Devices like splitting the screen for the same scenes, one side labeled “Expectations”, the other “Reality”—the consequent misalignment of the two presents a gritty view of humanity which I found to be refreshingly honest. “(500 Days of Summer)” peeled, poked, and burrowed under the many layers of a relationship without being too Hollywood about it. It cared more about being true to life rather than true to LA, and absented unrealistic dramatization from the story. Instead, the film was made interesting by, surprise surprise, humanity itself—its little quirks, tongue-in-cheekiness, sometimes laughable irony, and most importantly, its music.