(500) Days of Summer

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Let’s start with the title. It’s cute. It has parentheses for some reason. This makes it interesting in some ambiguously edgy way. The denotative reading suggests a happy summer romp that goes on ridiculously long, like the surfing movie Endless Summer, or Comedy Central’s SPF 100 from ten years ago. That the word Summer is actually a girl’s name is a nice little pun…

First we see an Annie-Hall-esque note to the audience that this movie isn’t about anyone specific, and then names a girl. “…especially you, Heather Lane” or something like that. Okay, it’s a movie written about a girl. Cool.

The movie starts with a disembodied narration. It sounds exactly like the narrator from a remarkable and under-watched film from three years ago called Little Children. It is, in fact, the same narrator. Points to the producers for cashing in on his terrific talent, though his tone doesn’t quite match this cute, quirky movie the way it did so perfectly for the ominous, eerie beauty of Little Children.

We are warned immediately that this is not a love story. Fair enough…

The title sequence is fantastic… too good, really. The characters are shown as children, growing up in parallel lives. The director employs a split screen to emphasize this point. I am a fan. He also employs super-8 film, also of which I am a fan. I use the same medium for art videos. But I use it with complete awareness of its nostalgic value, and my dishonest relationship to it: I was born in January of 1981 – my childhood videos are firmly shot on terrible-looking VHS tape. Joseph Gordon Levitt was born less than a month later than me. Zooey Deschanel was born one year earlier. These people, to whom the movie is designed for me to relate, were not shot on super-8mm film as kids. They saw it on the Wonder Years like I did. Why do we create false nostalgia? Is it purely about aesthetics? The rest of the movie suggests that, yes, it is.

We meet our protagonist. I forget his name. Clearly it is not his name that we are supposed to remember. He works in a big office. He sits at the table during board meetings and apparently carries clout amongst his peers, who are all middle-aged, except his co-worker buddy. My question here is this: is it feasible for a 28-year-old to be so well-regarded as a writer for greeting cards? Can he dress so well and earn such money in Los Angeles like this? The correct answer, I’m sure, is yes, but as a bit of a slacker, this seems far-fetched to me personally. Like Friends, it seems like a Hollywood ploy to make youthful life seem more pretty and convenient than it really is. After all, real twentysomethings making their way in big cities take lame jobs and live in less-than-ideal apartments. If they don’t, they are driven, astonishing people to whom we look up. This protagonist of ours – let me look up his name… ah, Tom Hansen (how could I have forgotten?!) – seems to be both. He’s like us: he gets lovesick and self-conscious and wants more in life, but lives in an awesome place in LA and has a pretty cool job. We learn, though, that what he really wants to do is be an architect. WHO DOESN’T?

(I read somewhere that being a wedding photographer is one of the best professions out there: lots of money, fun, creativity. Great hours. It’s true. It’s a good gig. The thing I was reading mentioned snidely that many photographers that shoot weddings actually aspire to shoot for National Geographic or something, and that they should be happy with such an awesome job, or leave it for people that really love it…)

My point is this: people I know are either on their way up one ladder or another toward their ideal job, or they are doing something far worse than writing greeting cards. Additionally, and more importantly, people that have so much talent flowing through them such that they can aspire to be architects while wowing their boss and co-workers with greeting cards tend to be arrogant to some degree. I definitely am. This makes it hard for me to accept that Tom Hansen is a real person. This distracts me.

Furthermore, isn’t the greeting card industry dominated by Hallmark? How is a little independent company paying Tom so well?

Moving on, Summer is introduced as Tom’s boss’s new assistant. She looks right at him. Twice. Huh. Their relationship continues at a karaoke bar, where there are no lyrics on a screen and the mic is on a cool stage and the whole place is amazing and the singers feel like stars. If such a place indeed exists, I doubt that a bunch of middle-aged co-workers are going there to celebrate Millie’s birthday. Are we going to a boring co-worker party or are we going to an awesome hangout? This is another example of the film having its cake and eating it too.

Back at the office, the two incredibly-dressed lovers kiss at the copy machines, in front of an amazingly-well-designed workplace poster warning against paper cuts. American workplaces, to my knowledge, look more like Kinko’s than they do stylish, smart stages.

The world created by this movie doesn’t exist. At times, it overtly admits this, like when Tom sings and dances with people in a park. We all know that movies are fictional, and it’s partly what makes them enjoyable, but I am taking exception to this one because of the way in which the lie is packaged. It is targeting me. It has the right music. It has the right wardrobe. The pictures of Zooey (obviously the right girl) look like the photography on ffffound.com. The narrator is taken from the aforementioned great independent film. The scenes in Ikea are taken from the art of Guy Ben-Ner, who staged domestic scenes with his family in an Ikea some years ago (was he paid as a consultant for this movie?). Ingmar Bergman is referenced. Sid and Nancy are referenced. Knight Rider is referenced. The stylization is borrowed directly from Wes Anderson, who taught us that a music department and art department can create a perfect film. The Ikea bit is particularly pointed, as I did the same thing in college with the girl I loved. I’m sure many of us did…

Advertisements prey on our collective imaginations all the time, and I expect it from them. I don’t like seeing it in cinema. I like to think of cinema as a place for artistic expression. When I see characters dressed dapperly in skinny jeans, skinny ties and fitted blazers, I want to believe that this style is genuine. I don’t want to see product placement for Panasonic.

The film, ultimately, feels too aestheticized for its own good. It looks great. It has some animation. It has various film and video stocks. It’s cool. But for what? Our guy has a good job, friends with whom he isn’t that competitive, a little sister who is overly-smart, all the superficial suggestions of awesomeness, sleeps with his boss’s assistant (who is gorgeous), can’t keep her, gets depressed in a comedic way, quits his job out of moral superiority (in a very cliché-laden speech scene), and pursues his real goal of architecture. This is an adolescent fantasy of a film.

Do we want adolescent fantasies? I suppose so. I feel guilty indulging in this film. It feels fake, and its sadness feels inauthentic. The happy ending and the overall exuberance with which the story is told make me feel like the recipient of a greeting card. “Love stings” or “It is better to love and lost than to never have loved at all” or something. Well, yes. I guess I want a more profound message from a film to consider it good… Not even. I want it to feel real, or honest. (500) Days of Summer feels test screened and manufactured. When Tom is pining over Summer, I want it to last so I can feel it. This movie feels like candy. I want a meal.