‘Funny and self-aware’: why (500) Days of Summer is my feelgood movie

It is September 2009. Barack Obama is settling into the White House. The global economy is hauling itself gingerly out of the financial crisis. And Keisha has just left the Sugababes.

But more importantly, I am on a first date.

Fans of indie music and cinema, both myself and the woman I’m seeing – I still remember the black dress and gold-glitter eyeshadow she chose – are seated to take in (500) Days of Summer, a quirky-looking romcom starring a youthful Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the doe-eyed, Ur-manic pixie dream girl Zooey Deschanel.

If you’ve not seen the film, how dare you, but here’s a recap: diehard romantic Tom (Gordon-Levitt) meets mysterious lone wolf Summer (Deschanel) in a lift at their workplace, and instantly falls in love when, first, she sings along to the Smiths song she can hear emanating from his headphones, and then, fatally, praises his taste in music. The film then – skipping around in non-linear fashion – recounts the 500 days in which Tom and Summer become close, fall into a relationship of some kind, fall apart in a seemingly sudden argument over what they mean to each other, and ultimately come to part forever as Summer moves jobs and, out of nowhere, marries another man.

The heart of the film is the grey area of Tom and Summer’s relationship: were they ever a couple, like Tom believes? Or were they just friends, as Summer insists? While each readily acknowledges they mean something significant to each other, the Rorschach test quality of their dynamic drives the drama.

The film is a success: the time-hopping format is a thrill, the rise and fall of their relationship plausible, funny and self-aware. The performances are nuanced career bests from a pair of leads with tangible chemistry. The production is gorgeous too: it combines a glorious indie-poptimist soundtrack, timeless yet squarely 2009 costuming and a sepia-tinged portrayal of Los Angeles which focuses not on the Hollywood Hills and golden beaches but instead on the city’s under-loved downtown, with its plazas, art deco high-rises and many, many car parks.

The date, by the way, was a success too. My wife and I have been together ever since, and (500) Days of Summer remains a shared love. Far too many lines have slipped into our lexicon, we have visited a number of key locations on visits to LA, and I at least regularly look back to Tom for office-wear inspo. (Bring back ties and cardigans, but perhaps not those Puma trainers just yet).

Most meaningfully, on every anniversary of that 2009 date, we rewatch the film together. We know the thing frame-by-frame now, but the reason we insist on coming back to the story every year stems from something deeper than just loving the script or the setting. To us, each annual rewatch is a chance to look again at the shape, direction and even nature of true love – and perhaps by extent our own relationship.

It’s an opportunity to reconsider Tom’s position: is he a true romantic, or just deeply naive? Is his desire to fix a label to what he has with Summer reasonable, or insecure? It’s a chance too to look anew at Summer’s philosophy: is she a woman of principled boundaries, or someone who locks others out to protect herself? Is her desire to avoid labelling things independence, or is it carelessness with the feelings of others?

Some years, we like to approach the rewatch with an agenda: last year, we tried to be Summer stans and see only Tom’s foibles. Other times, we theorise if things ever could have worked, or pinpoint the precise moment their relationship goes wrong. This year, we focused only on who was “worse” to the other (it’s Summer, sorry – you can’t invite your ex-lover to an intimate gathering at your apartment and not tell them it’s a party celebrating your engagement to an entirely different man!).

The beauty of the film to us is that, though it tends to be more sympathetic to Tom, it forces few conclusions upon you. In the film’s closing moments, when Tom and Summer part for the final time, they find one shared conclusion: he’s right about the existence of true love … but he just wasn’t meant to find it with her.

Each year, as we watch and litigate and re-litigate this wonderful film, I too find myself sure of one thing. While Tom was wrong about having found his true love, I know what I knew at that first viewing in 2008: I have found mine.

• (500) Days of Summer is available on Hoopla and to rent digitally in the US and on Disney+ in the UK and Australia