500 Days of Summer (2009)

 ●  English ● 1 hr 36 mins

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This post modern love story is never what we expect it to be — it’s thorny yet exhilarating, funny and sad, a twisted journey of highs and lows that doesn’t quite go where we think it will. When Tom, a hapless greeting card copywriter and hopeless romantic, is blindsided after his girlfriend Summer dumps him, he shifts back and forth through various periods of their 500 days “together” to try to figure out where things went wrong. His reflections ultimately lead him to finally rediscover his true passions in life.
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Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel

Crew: Marc Webb (Director), Eric Steelberg (Director of Photography), Mychael Danna (Music Director), Rob Simonsen (Music Director)

Rating: U/A (India)

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Release Dates: 30 Sep 2009 (France), 08 Oct 2009 (Singapore), 02 Sep 2009 (United Kingdom), 07 Aug 2009 (United States)

Tagline: Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't.

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Did you know? One thing that both Tom and Summer have in common is their love for "Bananafish." This was the name of a band which gained national prominence for a brief period in the 80's, in turn named for the first of J.D. Salinger's "Nine Stories": "A Perfect Day for Bananafish". Actress Zooey Deschanel who portrays Summer is herself named for another Salinger story, "Franny and Zooey". Read More
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as Summer
as Vance
as Usher
as McKenzie
as Minister
as Douche
as Rhoda
as Autumn - Girl at interview
as Another Partygoer
as Millie
as Alison
as Employee #1
as New Secretary

Direction

Director
First Assistant Director
Second Assistant Director

Production

Production Company
Associate Producer
Unit Production Manager

Distribution

Writers

Screenplay Writer

Camera and Electrical

Director of Photography

Music

Music Director

Sound

Foley Artist
Foley Editor

Art

Art Director
Set Decorator

Casting

Casting Director

Costume and Wardrobe

Costume Designer

Editorial

Makeup and Hair

Makeup Artist
Hair Stylist

Special Effects

Special Effects Coordinator

Stunts

Stunt Coordinator
Film Type:
Feature
Language:
English
Spoken Languages:
French, Swedish
Colour Info:
Color
Sound Mix:
Dolby Digital, DTS, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound
Frame Rate:
24 fps
Aspect Ratio:
2.35:1
Stereoscopy:
No
Taglines:
Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't.
This is not a love story. This is a story about love.
It was almost like falling in love.
Movie Connection(s):
Reference: Butterfly on a Wheel (English)
Goofs:
Revealing Mistakes
Summer's heart shaped birthmark on the left side of her neck is is shown twice (same footage) but is then not seen in situations where it should clearly be visible (most notably during the wedding scene where she is dancing with Tom).

Continuity
In the final scene together on the park bench, Summer can be seen wearing tall wedges. As she walks away from Tom, she is wearing flat sandals.

Continuity
In the split shots from the Expectations/Reality scene Summer wears an engagement ring in the Reality point-of-view, which is seen first when she hugs Tom at the door. When he enters the apartment the shot is the same for both Expectation and Reality and in both Summer is no longer wearing the ring.

Continuity
During the copy-room kiss scene, Summer only touches the back of Tom's head yet when she leaves Tom's hair is ruffled all over giving the impression of a passionate encounter.

Character Error
For someone who is supposedly a trained architect, Tom's drawings display an odd discrepancy in perspective. Perspective issues are a beginner mistake an architect would have been trained to avoid during the first semester in architecture school.

Character Error
When Summer says that their relationship is like that of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, Tom says that Sid stabbed Nancy seven times. He only stabbed her once.

Audio/Video Mismatch
In the karaoke scene after Summer sings Sugartown the instrumentals are looped, but her voice is cut right after she starts singing the second verse, so we can hear the word "and..." but then nothing.

Miscellaneous
Tom and Rachel are shown playing on a Nintendo Wii game console on day 11. Near the end of the film, the narrator says day 500 is Wednesday, May 23. The last time May 23 was a Wednesday was in 2007. Counting back, this means day 11 would have been January 18, 2006. The Nintendo Wii was not released until November 19, 2006.

Miscellaneous
On day 303 early in the film, Tom receives an e-mail from Summer that she can't meet that week and hopes that means he's ready to be friends. The e-mail is dated May 7, 2008. On Day 500, Tom awaits an interview and the narrator says it was May 23. This is inconsistent with the rest of the movie which seems to be set in 2006 and early 2007.
Trivia:
Although he was not credited for it, Richard McGonagle is the narrator in this movie.

According to the DVD commentary, the writer estimates that 75% of the film actually happened to him.

The film is set in 2006-2007. (The narrator says at the end of the film that May 23 was a Wednesday. The last time May 23 was a Wednesday was 2007.)

Around the time of the movie's release, director Marc Webb shot a short video for the Internet, which featured Zooey Deschanel as Sid Vicious and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Nancy Spungen, in reference to a conversation in this movie.

During the flashback to Summer's job selling ice cream, Tom can be seen waiting in line.

The film's blue-centric color scheme was done to bring out Zooey Deschanel's eyes.

On the screens where the numbers of the days in the relationship are shown, the coloring and "mood" of the background art change to reflect the status of the relationship. Good days are brighter and bad days are darker.

Ian Reed Kesler, who gets in a fight with Tom at the bar, is credited as "douche".

The studio never intended to include the documentary about love in the film, even going so far as to tell Marc Webb not to film it. The audience reaction during the first test screening convinced them otherwise.

This movie marks the feature film debut of music-video director, Marc Webb.

Zooey Deschanel chose her own song for the karaoke scene, the Sugartown song.

During the office party, Summer and Tom get into a conversation about the validity of love. During the conversation, Summer makes a reference to Johann Wolfgang Goethe's 'The Sorrows of Young Werther'. Her line, when the idea for Tom to sing comes up, is: "I nominate young Werther here."

In the original screenplay, Summer, was depicted as a having cropped blonde hair to construct a more summer-like persona.

One thing that both Tom and Summer have in common is their love for "Bananafish." This was the name of a band which gained national prominence for a brief period in the 80's, in turn named for the first of J.D. Salinger's "Nine Stories": "A Perfect Day for Bananafish". Actress Zooey Deschanel who portrays Summer is herself named for another Salinger story, "Franny and Zooey".

Joseph Gordon-Levitt wears T-shirts for Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and "Unknown Pleasures", and The Clash's "London Calling" albums.

The documentary about love was originally much longer and included opinions from Summer, Rachel, Millie, and Tom's mother.

The New Hampshire greetings office and Tom's apartment were filmed in the same building.

When Tom first enters Summer's apartment, the camera focuses on a bowler hat with a green apple on top of it. This resembles the famous painting "The Son of Man" by René Magritte, one of Summer's favorite artists.