Fifteen Years On, Why (500) Days of Summer Endures as a Feelgood Film

Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer opened in 2009, and one couple has rewatched it together every year since their first date at the cinema that September. The film, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, remains their shared love — and, they argue, a genuinely feelgood one: "funny and self-aware".

The writer, then on a first date with a woman in a black dress and gold-glitter eyeshadow, saw the film in September 2009 — the month Barack Obama was settling into the White House, the global economy was hauling itself out of the financial crisis, and Keisha had just left the Sugababes. The date was a success. The two have been together ever since, married, and the film has never left their lives.

The premise is simple. Diehard romantic Tom, played by Gordon-Levitt, meets mysterious lone wolf Summer, played by Deschanel, in a lift at their workplace. He falls instantly when she sings along to the Smiths track bleeding from his headphones and then praises his taste in music. The film recounts, in non-linear fashion, the 500 days in which they grow close, fall into a relationship of some kind, argue over what they mean to each other, and part forever as Summer moves jobs and, unexpectedly, marries another man.

What makes the film work?

The heart of the story is a grey area. Were Tom and Summer ever a couple, as Tom believes? Or just friends, as Summer insists? Both acknowledge they mean something significant to each other, and that Rorschach-test quality drives the drama.

The craft holds up, the writer argues. The time-hopping format is a thrill. The rise and fall of the relationship is plausible. The performances are "nuanced career bests from a pair of leads with tangible chemistry". The production combines a glorious indie-poptimist soundtrack, timeless yet squarely 2009 costuming, and a sepia-tinged Los Angeles that skips the Hollywood Hills for the city's under-loved downtown — its plazas, art deco high-rises and many car parks.

What does an annual rewatch change?

For this couple, each viewing is more than nostalgia. It is a chance to look again at the shape, direction and even nature of true love — and, by extension, their own relationship. The questions shift with the years. Is Tom a true romantic or deeply naive? Is Summer a woman of principled boundaries, or someone who locks others out to protect herself?

Some years they watch with an agenda. Last year they tried to be "Summer stans" and see only Tom's foibles. This year they judged only who was "worse" to the other — the verdict went against Summer, on the grounds that "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 film's beauty, the writer says, is that though it leans sympathetic to Tom, it forces few conclusions. In the closing moments, the pair find one shared truth: he is right about the existence of true love, but he was not meant to find it with her.

After all the annual litigation, the writer remains sure of one thing. Tom was wrong about having found his true love — but, as at that first viewing, the writer knows he has found his.

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