Trailer
Plot summary
Tom Hansen writes cards for a greeting card company in Los Angeles and once studied architecture before he ran out of money. Summer Finn arrives as the new assistant to his boss, Vance. The two share musical tastes, and on a karaoke night they argue about love: Tom believes in it, Summer does not. When Tom's friend drunkenly announces Tom's feelings for her, both describe the attachment as a close friendship. They grow closer over the months, and Summer tells him she is not looking for anything serious. Tom's half-sister Rachel and his friends push him to ask Summer what the two of them actually are.
Cast
- Charles Walkeras Millie's New Husband
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about (500) Days of Summer (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Co-writer Scott Neustadter admitted the film was based on a real romance: he met the girl who inspired the character Summer while a student at the London School of Economics in 2002 and fell "crazily, madly, hopelessly in love" with a woman who "returned his kisses but not his ardor".
- Marc Webb created a music video as a companion piece to the film, "The Bank Heist", with Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt dancing to her folk group She & Him's "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?"; Webb made it because Deschanel was "a little heartbroken" at being left out of the film's dance sequence.
- Costume designer Hope Hanafin has said Marc Webb insisted the color blue be worn exclusively by Summer, a decision based on Deschanel's eye color that also works subconsciously to attract attention; the only scene to break the rule is the Hall & Oates dance sequence.
- When Neustadter later showed the finished script to the real woman who inspired Summer, she told him she related more to the Tom character.
- Tom's favorite spot in Los Angeles was shot at Angel's Knoll, which became a popular tourist attraction after the film's release; it has been closed off to the public since July 2013 because of state cutbacks.
- As an independent production, the film was picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight Pictures, premiered at the 25th Sundance Film Festival and earned $60.7 million in worldwide returns, far exceeding its $7.5 million budget.
