Media and Music: "(500) Days of Summer" and the Music of the Male Gaze
Another iteration of the age-old tale of failed love, this time backed by a slew of hipsters.
In Media and Music, our writers take a deep dive into how movies use scores and songs to engage viewers, give new meaning and tone to some of our favorite scenes, and establish themes. It almost goes without saying, but there are spoilers abound.
Written by Grace Robertson
Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures
"(500) Days of Summer is," by the omniscient narrator’s own admission, not a love story. Unlike most movies, where the music is just a background mood amplifier, the soundtrack to "(500) Days of Summer" is almost like a narrator in its own right.
The movie follows a disjointed storyline, skipping around Tom’s relationship with Summer, a new assistant at his work who claims she is jaded by love. Through Tom’s eyes, the soundtrack provides narrative flow and sets up each scene in a way that’s consistent for the audience. From the breezy optimism of opening number “Us” by Regina Spektor to Patrick Swayze’s “She’s Like the Wind,” the soundtrack connects Tom and Summer in a way their relationship ultimately does not, with Summer growing more distant and Tom struggling to keep her in his reach.
The jaunty piano underscoring Regina Spektor’s “Us” dance over the film’s opening credits as the audience is greeted by the two main characters: Summer Finn played by the perfectly twee Zooey Deschanel, and Tom Hansen played by an endearing Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Swelling strings in Spektor’s hipster pop track creates a bright, hopeful tone as we watch a split-screen view of the two growing up — leading separate, but parallel, lives. The montage of memories reveals that Tom was a hopeless romantic from a young age, while Summer, scarred by her parents divorce, has a disdain for the idea of love and commitment. One of the first things the two main characters bond over is their shared love of music, from the Smiths to obscure Russian dream pop band Bananafish. Summer, as the quintessential manic pixie dream girl, obviously has great taste in music (at least to Tom).
Tom first meets Summer in an elevator, while listening to the Smiths’ “There Is a Light that Never Goes Out” through black over-ear headphones. To his surprise, the awkward silence between the two is broken when Summer announces her love for the band and hums along to the track as it plays from his iPod. From this moment on, Tom is completely lovestruck and his perception of Summer is tinted by the relentless optimism of his rose-colored glasses. He believes that their shared niche interests bind them together — not that they’re just two people who happen to like the same thing. While the Smiths were still perceived as underground, melancholic indie/alternative rock (despite selling literally millions of records), “There Is a Light that Never Goes Out” remains one of the most popular Smiths songs since its release. He feels like it’s fate binding them together — what are the odds they like the same ‘80s British rock band?
The Smiths are a romantic, self-effacing, often existential and disenchanted band.While Tom latches onto the romance at the core of the group's discography, Summer takes its flowery, heartbreaking lyrics in stride, never feeling the pressure to find her own version of love in each verse. In the chorus of “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” vocalist Steven Patrick Morrissey croons over an intimate, balanced bass line, flute, and simple chord progression detailing his feelings for a hypothetical lover: “If a double decker bus / Crashes into us / To die by your side / Is such a heavenly way to die.” The unrequited nature of the song’s lyrics signals what Tom is in for, even if he doesn’t know it at that moment. Tom believes that it was fate that brought the two together. His younger sister, who moonlights as Tom’s relationship coach throughout the film, explains it best: “Just ‘cause a cute girl likes the same bizarro crap that you do, that doesn’t make her your soulmate.”
Unlike other romcoms, "(500) Days of Summer" doesn’t shy away from the messiness of real-life relationships: From breakups and reunions, miscommunications, and a flawed main character who just doesn’t understand what’s so wrong about him and Summer together, it depicts all the difficulties that come with loving someone in real life. While the audiences live the story through Tom’s perspective, we can see the hiccups in his relationship way earlier than he can.
Throughout the movie, the audience journeys through Tom’s hyper-visual, hyper-imaginative world and inner thoughts — including his own personal earworms. The soundtrack is another outlet Tom uses to paint his world, and communicate how he’s feeling to both Summer and the audience. After he spends his first night with Summer, he has a flash-mob style impromptu dance in the park to “You Make My Dreams” by Daryl Hall and John Oats, trumpeting (literally) his success and the euphoria of early love. He walks down his street the next morning like he just scored the winning point of the Super Bowl as strangers congratulate him with handshakes and high fives (all dressed in blue, which is Summer’s “color” throughout the movie). A crowd of strangers dances around him in the park, literally raising him up on their shoulders; Tom is clearly on top of the world.
After that night, Tom shows Summer his favorite spot in the city — a bench that overlooks architectural landmarks like the fine arts building, and, as Summer points out, plenty of parking lots. The Temper Trap’s slow-building “Sweet Disposition” plays as Tom lets Summer into his world. The indie anthem is about the innocence of youth, and reflects Tom’s open excitement about Summer and the potential future they have together.
While Tom envisions a bright future with who he believes is his soulmate, he’s caught by complete surprise when Summer breaks up with him. This is the first true look into Summer’s psyche, and she points out clear signs that Tom missed in his love-haze along the way: constant bickering, her annoyance with activities they used to like to do together (Ikea’s just not the same after the honeymoon phase), and maybe most telling of all — Summer leaving the movie theater distraught after watching "The Graduate," a movie mentioned in the opening scenes as one Tom considers a romance rather than a tragedy. After they’ve broken up, Tom reunites with Summer on a train ride to a mutual friend’s wedding. As late afternoon light floods in around them, the ambient, melodic dance track “Sweet Disposition” plays again — this time to signify the return of Tom’s innocent hope (for better or worse).
Tom and Summer dance together that night, both clearly happy and (for Tom, at least), brimming with love. On the train ride home, Summer falls asleep on Tom’s shoulder. After the wedding, Summer invites Tom to a rooftop party she’s hosting, which only fuels his hope for winning her back. Regina Spektor's wistful pop ballad "Hero" foreshadows his looming disappointment. The track directly contrasts Spektor’s breezy opening number, and shows how far he’s fallen back in love with Summer in such a short time. “He never saw it coming at all / It’s alright,” Spektor croons as Tom bounds up the stairs to Summer’s apartment. Director Marc Webb shows two variations of the same night, clearly laying out the disjointment between Tom’s expectations for the night versus the reality. In his expectations, he and Summer cozy up, after she realizes he is “The One.” However, reality depicts minimal conversations between the two, followed by Tom isolating himself from the rest of the guests. The sullen track comes to a brief pause, as a crestfallen Tom notices an engagement ring on her finger. To the sound of a thundering piano and Spektor’s aching reassurances (“I’m the hero of the story / Don’t need to be saved”), Tom sprints back down the stairs, alone and crushed once again. The song is Tom comforting himself, reminding him that everything will be okay. In reality, the song is another subjective façade Tom throws over his life. As the audience, we know Tom won’t move on from Summer quickly. (After all, this is only day 408 out of 500).
As Tom begins to recover, optimism starts to filter in through the soundtrack yet again, including the lively heavy rock song “Vagabond” by Wolfmother. Finally, Tom fully gets over Summer after he plunges directly into Autumn, a girl he meets at a job interview for an architecture firm who he’s competing with for the job. The early 2000s hipster indie rock ballad “She’s Got You High” by Mumm-ra plays as the credits roll, signifying that Tom hasn’t fully learned from his experience with Summer.
Although the love of the ill-fated pair failed, the "(500) Days of Summer" soundtrack provides both the lighthearted optimism and dramatic lows that Tom carries with him until the end. Even though his story isn’t a love story, it’s no matter: After all, no movie backed by the Smiths truly could be. Tom’s story isn’t a love story, but it is a story about love, and "(500) Days of Summer" proves that’s just as exciting a story to watch.