This is not a love story—this is a story about a story about love. Fifteen years ago this summer, (500) Days of Summer landed in theaters, charming audiences with the tale of Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a greeting-card writer with a thing for The Smiths, and his romance with the fun-loving Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel).
Expectations: modest. “The truth is that we didn’t really write this to get it made,” Scott Neustadter says. He and his writing partner, Michael H. Weber—whom he’d met working at TriBeCa Productions a decade earlier—were not professional screenwriters in the late aughts; they simply wanted to craft the kind of offbeat rom-com they’d have liked to see in theaters. Also, Neustadter had been through a tough breakup (two of them, actually) and figured working his feelings out on the page “maybe would help me…instead of therapy.”
Reality: To their enormous surprise, the film became a cult classic. It grossed $60.7 million against a $7.5 million budget; drew comparisons to Annie Hall, one of the towering examples of the genre; cemented its two stars as household names; and earned The Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition” its rightful place on iPods everywhere.
Though Pinterest wouldn’t launch until the year after (500) Days of Summer’s premiere, the platform remains, to this day, scattered with images of Deschanel as Summer in bow-tied ponytails, dainty vintage dresses, and 500 shades of blue—the hue director Marc Webb and Deschanel designated as the character’s trademark “because of Zooey’s eyes.”
Yet the most enduring conversation around the movie has not concerned its delightful costuming or its kickass indie-rock/pop soundtrack, but rather which character was meant to be the villain: hopeless romantic Tom, who was truly down bad, or forthright free spirit Summer, who was not looking for anything serious.
“There was a sense that Summer was really cruel to Tom, but our feeling had always been that Summer was always honest with Tom—that he was applying a fantasy onto that character,” Webb says. Deschanel recalls fans of the movie approaching her to voice their frustrations directly. “I can’t tell you how many [people] came up to me, like, ’I hate you, Summer!’” she says. “And I was like, ’Wait. What?’ For years.” So pervasive was the notion that Tom had been Summer’s victim, Gordon-Levitt was moved to weigh in on Twitter literally nine years later, encouraging a fan still distraught over his treatment to give the movie a rewatch.
“People often will say to me like, ’Oh, that Summer, she was so bad to leave your Tom,’” and I really don’t agree,” Gordon-Levitt says now. “How could she not leave him? The example I always give is the scene where Summer starts telling Tom a dream that she had, and he’s not listening to her at all. The narrator speaks over her, saying, like, ’Tom could tell that he was really special in her life,’ or whatever. It’s completely selfish. What’s sweeter than your lover telling you about their dream? That’s the nectar of life. Yeah, of course you’re gonna get left.”
Much has been made of the “death of the rom-com” in recent years. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when they began to cede their cultural power—was it around the onset of the streaming era?—but arguably not since (500) Days of Summer has a romantic comedy felt quite so indelible.
Here, as we roll into the dog days of summer 2024, the cast and creatives behind (500) Days of Summer revisit the movie and its legacy through a few key scenes.
Casting for chemistry
Tom Hansen: hipster type, wears lots of sweater vests and his heart on his sleeve. Summer Finn: girl-next-door, great at karaoke, breezy confidence. Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel, who were already friends in real life, had all the makings of a great—if doomed—young couple.
Scott Neustadter, writer: The bigger the star, the harder it is, sometimes, to get audiences to identify with the character. We got these guys, I feel, at the exact right moment, because they’re so talented but you didn’t bring expectations about them to the movie.
Marc Webb, director: I had seen Zooey in a music video for The Offspring that [Jonathan] Dayton and [Valerie] Faris had done. She’s so watchable. She’d done some other movies—she’d done Elf at the time, and she was wonderful. They both existed in the independent sphere a little bit; Joe had done Mysterious Skin. They had a critical kind of cache even though they weren’t huge box-office stars. They had cred.
Michael H. Weber, writer: There was a lot of discussion about casting Tom because we are in his point of view, and Scott and I felt strongly that we needed someone who’s an actor first and funny second, because we wanted to make sure the emotional beats really landed. Joe is funny, but he’s also a brilliant dramatic actor, and you really believe what he’s feeling.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hansen: Tom is the protagonist in the structure of the story—it’s told from his point of view—and conventionally in a rom-com or in any Hollywood movie, the protagonist is the good guy. To me, one of the most clever and creative things about the movie is that it deviates from that convention. I’m seeing the story through his eyes and he’s biased in favor of himself. And that’s sort of the lesson. We all see ourselves as the good-guy protagonist.
Zooey Deschanel, Summer Finn: It’s kind of funny. The first draft of the script I got, I actually think I passed on it because you don’t know who [Summer] is. I was like, I don’t know how to play that. The draft I ended up saying yes to [gave you] a window into this character—but not the whole thing, because it’s from Tom’s point of view. She’s kind of a construct of Tom’s. I like the challenge of creating a character who had more to her that you could sense.
Webb: When you’re doing a romance, you’re casting chemistry, not just casting independent actors. They had done a movie together called Manic, and were great together in that. They had known each other for a long time. Joe had a kind of earnestness, a sweet groundedness that just felt right. If we had used somebody who was just a tap-dancing comedian, I don’t think it would have had the emotional resonance. And Zooey has such great comedic timing and a rhythm all her own, it was just an intuitive thing.
Deschanel: We’ve been friends for 20 years. Joe is such a great person, great actor. It’s always so nice to have that rapport with somebody and to be able to feel safe with them. I would for sure [do another project with him]. I loved working with Joe.
Gordon-Levitt: [Zooey] and I were in a movie together called Manic. It’s the first movie that allowed me to do heavy drama, so it was really special to me. Zooey and I were real friends. The idea of getting to do another movie together felt exciting. She has incredible taste and knowledge of movies and music—when I was 19 years old, the first time I ever heard Nina Simone was because Zooey played her for me. The first time I ever saw A Woman Is a Woman by Jean-Luc Godard was because Zooey played it for me. We all have those friends; Zooey is that person. On set, after lunch, we’d go back into the hair and makeup trailer for touch-ups and Zooey was always putting on old Motown music. We’d have a dance party in there after every lunch. We were just sincerely having a great time.
Weber: I remember them sharing earbuds. Between takes and setups, they would listen to music together and talk about music.
Neustadter: On set, Joe was just sitting there getting into character, listening to music, and I’m always curious, so I asked what he was listening to. And he said She and Him [Deschanel’s band]. I was like, “Seriously?” And he was.
Playing house at IKEA
IKEA dates are a thing; a 2012 30 Rock episode would explore how challenging it is for a relationship to survive a visit to the labyrinthine Swedish furniture giant intact. In (500) Days of Summer, Tom and Summer go twice: during their honeymoon stage and right at the brink of breaking up.
Webb: We got to use the IKEA in Burbank over one night. I came home and I was so scared I had fucked it up that I vomited. It’s the only time I’ve ever thrown up after a film day. It’s the beginning of the romance; I didn’t know how to make the movie without it. It really reflected a thematic thing, which is fantasy: them playing house and him playing with these ideas of romance and domestic life that aren’t exactly real. I think it emanated from Michael Weber’s experience.
Weber: When we had our initial conversations about this movie, we talked about when you’re on the way up the mountain in a relationship, and then when it’s sort of falling apart and you’re on the way down the mountain, you can have the same moment twice. Depending on which side of the mountain you’re on, the vibe is totally different. We thought, wouldn’t it be interesting if those scenes are back-to-back rather than an hour apart? We were trying to figure out something less static than sitting at a restaurant, and I remembered I’d been to IKEA twice with an ex-girlfriend, on the way up the mountain and on the way down. The first time we were there, we were basically playing house, like that scene in Rebel Without a Cause. Then, on the way down the mountain… not so fun anymore.
Hope Hanafin, costume designer: [Webb] said, “Aren’t they a little dressed up to be shopping in IKEA?” And I said, “Trust me.” It was a real harkening back to the ’50s sitcoms. If there had been a little ruffled apron hanging up there, I would’ve put it on her. I love all those echoes of the past that have kind of trapped him.
“You Make My Dreams,” a.k.a. “the best day ever”
The jubilant dance number to Hall Oates’s “You Make My Dreams,” after Tom and Summer’s first hook-up, became one of the film’s most resonant moments. Don’t just take our word for it: John Oates himself called it “one of the best integrated usages of a song in a film.”
Neustadter: We’re in Tom’s head and he’s obsessed with pop culture. He’s watched all these movies and he listened to all this music. It just felt like a very natural extension of that kind of character. And so after he gets the girl—quote, unquote—that would happen.
Webb: It was originally written as a parade, but I had done so many music videos, I sort of brought [that] into the movie. I was like, This has to be a dance sequence. I wanted the color blue to be really apparent, because of Zooey’s eyes. The only other blue we used in the movie was associated with Summer.
Hanafin: I asked for an exception [to the rule that only Deschanel could wear blue] for the “morning after” scene. My thought was, in that moment, the afterglow, the world turns into her, right? You just have a feeling that everything is right with the world and everything is a reflection of her, so everyone in that scene is in blue.
Andrea von Foerster, music supervisor: “You Make My Dreams” can start and stop anywhere, and it will be stuck in your head for the rest of your life. It’s perfect. We wanted Daryl Hall and John Oates on camera, maybe sitting on a stoop, and at first it was a yes but then it became a no, and we decided to just do it without them in it. I’m really glad we did. We all sang the song all day long. No one got sick of it. It was the best day of shooting: We were downtown, outside of the LA courthouse; we were controlling the fountain; we had the UCLA Marching Band, and all these people dancing. It looked like an Old Navy commercial.
Gordon-Levitt: I was just so intent on not fucking it up because I’m not a professional dancer, but I was surrounded by this huge troupe of professional dancers. And for them, all this stuff—this routine that I’ve been practicing in my apartment at night for weeks, just, like, making sure that I could remember what comes after what—is super easy. I think the choreographer showed it to them like once or twice in the morning, and they could all just do it.
Deschanel: I definitely felt FOMO not being in that scene! You know what’s funny is I was with my band that day—I had to fly up to do a show at some festival or something. Marc said, “I actually was thinking about some way to put you in that scene, but it makes sense that you weren’t in it!” But [Webb, Gordon-Levitt,] and I got to work with Michael Rooney, who was the film’s amazing choreographer, in a music video for “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” which kind of made up for it.
Webb: Joe was super excited about doing a dance sequence. I wasn’t sure he was going to be, but he loved it. We called that sequence “The Best Day Ever,” and we had to rush it because the second half of the day was dedicated to what we called “The Worst Day Ever.” It was a sad dance. We screened it for the audience, they hated it, we cut it out. I think it was just score, there was no song. Maybe that was the problem.
High hopes at the rooftop engagement party
This is the scene that gave birth to the now-classic “Expectations / Reality” meme. It was a lovely party or a devastating shock to the system, depending on your side of the split-screen.
Neustadter: I was thinking the story here was that [Tom] has the idea in his head of what’s gonna happen: that Summer would have a party at her place, invite him to it, and he just assumes it’s going to go one way, and it doesn’t. We’d done a split-screen in this already with the opening credits, and it would have been in the logic of the storytelling. I whipped up the idea, sent it to Marc, and was basically like, “I don’t know how you’re gonna do this, but it’s not my problem!” He made a Maroon 5 music video to kind of test out if this would work.
Weber: I did that [format] with Maroon 5; I also did it with Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” video. Those were the two videos that helped support that sequence. I was curious to know how to make sure an audience understood the story, so I used those a little bit to see what you could get away with. We had the title sequence with a Regina Spektor song, and I wanted to have one other [Spektor] moment that was more substantial, and we came up with the reality vs. expectations thing, which is now, I guess, a meme.
von Foerster: The way [“Hero” by Regina Spektor] is written, it was already perfect [for the scene]. The way that Marc shot it was perfect. The entire movie almost looks like a music video because it’s so bright; you have the interstitials, the fairy-tale like voiceover, and all of it makes it both safe and sort of fantastical—but also very real when you feel the emotions.
Gordon-Levitt: I think that’s my favorite idea in the movie. I made a movie that’s in certain ways inspired by that same concept of expectations versus reality, Don Jon. The character I play has all these expectations built up because he’s addicted to pornography, and the character that Scarlett [Johansson] plays has all these expectations built up because she’s addicted to Hollywood rom-coms. Whether we get these expectations from the media or our friends or our families, we spend so much time comparing instead of just being grateful for the present. I don’t know if there’s a lesson that’s more important to learn in all of life than that one.
Endless Summer
Parting thoughts on the beloved, sometimes misunderstood movie’s reception and impact.
Weber: A lot of people said no to the script—
Neustadter: Everyone said no!
Weber: …and then Searchlight said yes. But I think that not knowing what we were doing is why there’s so much in it that is a little bit off-kilter and kind of special and different and, I guess, interesting. I love that we took chances like that. Every day, we were definitely thinking they were gonna pull the plug. We had never made a movie before, Marc had never made a movie before, and all of us were such newbies. We were like: Is this really happening?
Weber: So many movies I see are so quickly forgettable. That anyone was talking about it then, or still talking about it now, is really nice.
von Foerster: People in my phone, whether they were friends, or colleagues, or people I’d met once, were like, “I just bought the soundtrack!” I think if more people thought about the music when they’re writing, that would come through in the story the same way that it did in (500) Days of Summer, where that music comes out as a character. It’s almost like a journal entry when a song comes on, it’s so much of that character’s feelings. To this day, I still get people telling me, “I just rewatched it, and it’s so fucking good.”
Webb: There were a few different [critical] readings of the film. One was that we, as the filmmakers, were incurious about the inner life of the Summer character. And I think that’s true of [Tom], but I don’t think that we as the makers of the film were incurious; I think we were making a commentary on that. They were mistaking Tom’s philosophy for our philosophy. There’s, I think, a lot of fair criticism to make of the movie, but that felt a little cheap.
Neustadter: Joe is so lovable, [but] we thought we put enough signifiers in there to kind of explain that he is the protagonist of the movie who has to go through all the changes and that he’s doing this wrong. It was marketed as a romantic comedy, and those are two-handers—each character has depth and three dimensions, and they’re each individually thorough characters. That’s not the case here. This is a coming-of-age story.
Gordon-Levitt: My favorite movies are the ones that spawn disagreement and discussion, where different people see it different ways. Those aren’t usually the movies that do the best at the box office, to be honest, and we’re all so box-office-obsessed. But I really like stories that can be seen in multiple ways. So when I’m talking about (500) Days of Summer, it’s not because I want people to see it one way or another, it’s because I think it’s fun and fascinating. That’s the joy of movies: Here’s how I see it, maybe it’s different than how you see it. I’m just grateful that I got to be a part of it. I’ve been very lucky to get to do a bunch of movies, and there’s only a small handful of them that resonated the way this one does.
Deschanel: I’ve done so many little movies, a lot of them nobody sees. You never know the impact something’s going to have. Film’s a collaborative art, there are a lot of forces at play, so it all has to come together at once to make a little bit of magic. If we knew exactly what those things were, we’d just be making hit movies all the time. It was a really special experience.
Webb: I’ve noticed my friends’ teenage kids are starting to experience it. I’ve gotten a lot of texts [about it], weirdly, in the last four or five months. When you’re younger, the world and your feeling about romance is—at least for me, it was—so filled with hope and possibility and abstraction, you have to kind of surrender that in order to find something real, which is much more powerful. There’s a line in the movie [during a testimonial scene] that articulates the main component of the film: “She’s not the girl of my dreams; she’s better, because she’s real.” There’s things in the script that are not going to change the world, but that sort of dabbled in the profound. That’s what I liked about the movie. It wasn’t too pretentious—it was fun.