An offbeat romantic comedy told from a Noughties' male perspective, (500) Days of Summer is the coolest film of the year. A firm believer that men are the new women, Xtra-visions Marshall Julius bonds with director Marc Webb.
Easily the freshest, smartest, funniest and most perceptive romantic comedy of 2009, if not the entire past decade, (500) Days of Summer chronicles the ups and downs of a doomed but formative relationship between a pragmatic girl who doesn't believe in true love, and the hopelessly romantic boy who can't help but fall for her. Starring the irresistibly paired Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel as Tom and Summer, with a cool indie soundtrack you'll be humming for months, (500) Days of Summer comes from first-time feature director Marc Webb, and is available now, on Blu-ray and DVD, from Xtra-vision.
"The script was sort of an orphan," says Webb of the screenplay written by fledgling writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. "None of the big studios wanted it, which surprised me, as it was so funny and honest.
"Apparently, before I was involved, there was a studio that shall go unnamed, and an executive there who said, 'We really like the script, we want to make this script, but you need to make one change'. So Scott and Michael are alike, 'That's great, what do you need?' And the guys says back, with a totally straight face, 'It can't be about a relationship'.
"According to him, there needed to be another element to make it appealing, but one of the things I love about this movie is that it's not high concept. A lot of romantic comedies are based on some high concept conceit, like one person tricking the other, but that kind of thing doesn't interest me. I wanted to tell a story about real people, because there's enough comedy and enough drama in the sort of situations that we've all been in to make a great movie. That was our thesis at the beginning, and I'm happy to say that audiences have so far acknowledged and accepted that."
What Webb was after, he says, was truth. Relationships aren't all comedic or all dramatic, but there are elements of both, often in the same moment. "This movie's about a very specific period in somebody's life," says the director. "It's not about poverty, war or any other really serious issue. But we didn't want to dismiss the emotional consequence of heartbreak. Relationship movies are often either brooding and harsh, or else they're dismissive, and treat sadness and the heartbreak that comes from that in a very pat way. Without taking ourselves too seriously and subverting the entertainment factor, we wanted our film to be realistic and explore both the whimsy and the joy that relationships can give you, and also the brutality."
Certainly the movie makes you think back on past relationships. "One of the things we always said," explains Webb, "is that Summer's not just a girl. She's a phase of your life. Irrespective of gender. We've all had that person who shaped us a little bit. Who stirred us up. And that's what we were trying to explore."
Though based, for the most part, on the writers' own experiences, Webb found he had much to add. "There's a scene in the movie where Summer tells Tom about a dream she had, and it makes him feel special. That was based on something that once happened to me," reveals Webb. "I was having dinner with this girl. She was telling me about her parents, and some issues they'd had when she was younger, and at the end of the story, she took a moment and said, 'I've never told anybody that before'.
"When she said that, I immediately felt I had access to her. That I had possession. There was something that I felt like I could grapple on to. But I realise now it was an immature and selfish way to look at that moment. Instead of appreciating this interesting thing that was happening with her, and enjoying that moment, I was more like, 'Now she's mine!' Like Tom, though I seemed homelessly romantic on the surface, in reality I was emotionally insecure. But those are the kind of experiences that hopefully you learn from, and grow out of."
It's tough being a man in today's post-feminist world, says Webb. "Those are the times we live in. Women are more empowered. We're trying to define masculinity in a different way and it's a little bit confusing. Right now we're trying to discover what it means to be a man."
Beyond the perceptive screenplay, mellifluous tunes and creative visuals, at the heart of (500) Days of Summer are two perfect, and perfectly matched, performances. "In a movie like this," agrees Webb, "you have to cast the chemistry. You can't cast a person from List A and a person from List B based on their separate talents. You have to cast the dynamic. Joe and Zooey had already been in a movie together [2001's Manic], and there was definitely something there. It was great that they already knew each other. There was a flavour to their chemistry that was really powerful."
A film that stirs the thoughts and emotions of older viewers, and alerts the young to experiences yet to come, (500) Days of Summer has a message, says Webb, but first and foremost "...we wanted to make it accessible. We wanted it to be funny. We wanted to give audiences an entertaining hour-and-a-half," he concludes. "But yes, we were trying to say something, and hopefully it's something that people take away from the movie: happiness lies within."