My Thoughts on: (500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer
2009
Marc Webb

It's so intimate it hurts.

(500) Days of Summer is about the relationship between a young card-writing architect Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and secretary/drifter Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and the turbulent up and downs that we may encounter in a relationship. It is shown from the perspective of Tom, and his idealized relationship, consisting with many quirky montages and narrations awash with dreamy songs that play in our heads in our own soft montages.

I was once in the same shoes as Summer herself (relating to the 'supposed' antagonist) where I wanted a relationship that was just (and this term is tossed around so often) - casual. I felt like I was young and free, but also wanted to experience a constant connection with someone, an experience. Albeit this wasn't without consequences (that felt like it was entirely my fault), in various summers, I had broken the hearts of a couple of boys, because I was selfish with my heart and I didn't want my emotions to be controlled by another person. Little had I known they I too had control over theirs (and I'm truly sorry for that). In another sense I wanted to be the fun-loving, bubbly and quirky manic pixie dream girl that I had partially idolized and envisioned in many movies. An unabashedly girly and gorgeous being who swoops into young men's lives and shows them an otherworldly time. I was unintentionally molding myself into a characteristic that in reality, is unrealistic and was just a fantasy. (500) Days of Summer hit the nail on the head for me, bringing me back to these deplorable and cobwebbed feelings of the past, but from Summer's perspective.

(500) Days of Summer is told in a non-linear narrative utilizing in the sense (as many critics have already pointed out) of the way we recall significant memories; sitting on the park bench sharing ambitious hopes, lying on the bed recalling surreal dreams and fears, even quietly heated and flirty debates about musical differences. It's so intimate, and so real, that it hurts. These situations happen, these are the little things that are the fabric of a relationship  We see the foundations that have built up and it also effectively presents the dynamic of the couple. We see how smitten Tom is over Summer, the way he notices and likes 'her heart shaped birthmark on her neck' or 'how she licks her lips before she talks' as well as his insecurities of this unequal relationship.

By inequality I mean the inequality that truly stems from their differences in the intentions of the relationship even though they had been established from the start (by Summer). Summer wanted a casual relationship, but Tom (despite the obvious disappointment that stirs up in his face and idealistic fantasies) seems to want something more but bends to the tone set by Summer. Tom, viewed Summer as the aforementioned Manic Pixie Dream Girl, this rifted upon stock character of many charming movies. Tom blindly placed this unrealistic character in his real situation.

Tom, with his extremely boyish charm, strives to have this ultimate relationship, and put pressure upon Summer. This is easily identified from this beginning when Tom is introduced from the beginning saying (he) 'grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total misreading of the movie, 'The Graduate''. Tom like me, grew up on films, and they placed heavy weight unto our experiences that did not play on a screen (wow this is getting weirdly paradoxical) and onto Summer. This movie motif is applied in some scenes of Summer, one of which there are dreamy sun-soaked extreme closeups of Summer laughing as they make animated conversation on a train but we can not hear them.

Ultimately, for no specified reason, Summer breaks up with Tom. There is a very poignant and heart wrenching montage where the moments that Tom constantly referred to and played back, also had bad moments. The moments in life, that are quietly brooding, and yet we deny ourselves from. We've seen them in these situations played on screen but we too, chose to neglect them a little. Tom had placed his fantasy relationship onto Summer, who wasn't the once to reciprocate it. Tom had seen Summer as the Manic Pixie Dream girl, of which she didn't want to deliver. She left. She moved on. And just like she justified the parting of her previous relationships, it explains this one too, 'What always happens. Life.'

(500) Days of Summer in a weird way shattered my constant idealization of life (which isn't really a bad thing always) by comparing it to films, but also my expectations of other from this too, and of myself. Things won't always play out like a movie and in reality other people contribute to my own story line and sometimes life isn't a fantasy. I shouldn't set myself up to set footprints upon other peoples hearts if I don't feel I can deliver, and I shouldn't neglect the problems or the bad things that I may encounter, but, to also love the magic of coincidence in reality - The unexpected and serendipitous, for one of these experiences, may work out right.

'Coincidence, that's all anything ever is, nothing more than coincidence .. Tom had finally learned there are not miracles. There's no such thing as fate, nothing is meant to be. He knew, he was sure of it now. Tom was... pretty sure'

(Side note: late post so I'm super tired and not going to proof-read/edit this tonight)