‘Funny and self-aware’: why (500) Days of Summer is my feelgood movie

The latest in our ongoing series of writers detailing their most rewatched comfort films carries special romantic meaning

It is September 2009. Barack Obama is settling into the White House. The global economy is hauling itself gingerly out of the financial crisis. And Keisha has just left the Sugababes.

But more importantly, I am on a first date.

Fans of indie music and cinema, both myself and the woman I’m seeing – I still remember the black dress and gold-glitter eyeshadow she chose – are seated to take in (500) Days of Summer, a quirky-looking romcom starring a youthful Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the doe-eyed, Ur-manic pixie dream girl Zooey Deschanel.