500 Days of Summer, a post-modern love story, unfolds by juxtaposing the high and low points of a failed romance, constantly jumping back and forth in time. In a bit of a role reversal from traditional romantic comedies, this time it’s the boy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who falls hopelessly in love and the girl (Zooey Deschanel) who won’t commit. Screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael Webber talked to Heeb at Sundance after the film’s premiere.
How do you position the tone of the film? Some people are describing it as an anti-romantic comedy, which you’ve said you don’t agree with.
Scott: I definitely think it’s not an anti-romantic comedy. It’s not against any of those sentiments. It very firmly embraces all of them. We’re sentimental guys. I would hope that people understand when they watch it that it is very much on the side of romance.
Michael: I don’t identify with other movies and TV shows where it’s all about the guys. That’s not our sensibility.
Scott: If it’s anti-anything, it’s anti the way Hollywood movies are made. When I went through something like this, there were no movies to which I could turn to ease the pain. Pop culture is really great for finding reference points for what you’re feeling, and for whatever reason Hollywood stopped making movies about a relationship in a relatable way. They’re not sincere, they’re hard to identify with and they don’t feel like anything that you’ve been through.
Michael: Everyone comes up to us after the screenings with different parts that they related to the most, which is great.
At what point in working on the story did you decide on its non-linear structure?
Michael: From the initial idea.
Scott: We had always wanted to write this kind of a movie. Our screenwriting heroes are Woody Allen, Cameron Crowe, all those guys. We didn’t come up with a big hook idea, and the wrong thinking was that we couldn’t do a movie like this without a big hook. I think I got the title first, and then I realized what we could do with it. So the structure really came before we started working more on the story.
Michael: The way we tell the story, while we don’t see it very often, is very relatable. We don’t remember old relationships in a linear way. You walk by a bench or see something from the past, and it triggers another memory. We wanted the way we tell the story to mirror how we think about our lives.
How did director Marc Webb come on board?
Eric: Fox Searchlight bought the script. They said they were looking at up-and-coming music video directors. We kind of wrote this as almost 32 short films about a relationship. It’s very musical and it’s busy. So we really liked the idea. It was very fortuitous for us that Marc came on. That’s when the script got better and we knew it was going to be a home run. There’s no one else who could have done this.
Michael: From the first time we talked to him, it was extremely obvious he wanted to make the same film as us.
What’s your Sundance experience been like so far?
Scott: The Sundance experience is very different when you’re in a relationship or when you’re single.
Michael: One of us is getting a lot less sleep than the other, that’s for sure.
Scott: The response so far has been really amazing. Watching it with the audience is one of my highlights for sure. You’re not going to get everybody, but the people you do get are really passionate about the movie.
Michael: We’ve been to other festivals, and you can tell that Sundance is for film lovers.
500 Days of Summer comes out in July, but you guys also wrote The Pink Panther 2, starring Steve Martin, which comes out first.
Scott: It’s coming out February 6. It is not exactly the same as Summer. It’s a different kind of animal, and we’re excited for that experience. The cast is unbelievable, and it’s going to be fun. It was a big budget movie, compared to this little $8 million thing. It’s been very cool for us to see both worlds, but only Panther is autobiographical.
Check out more Sundance Coverage from Michael Liss.
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