(500) Days of Summer

Rating: 8/10 (23 June 2016)

The word "love" is overused. We hear it virtually everyday. Whether it be in songs, movies, television, the internet, or cards, we are bludgeoned over the head by the media of the idea that we all must meet "the one". This results in people like Tom, a hopeless romantic and, naturally, a writer of those cards that you get every year on Valentines Day. He hopes to be an architect, but, judging by his belief in fate, he probably thinks that if he were good enough to be an architect, then he would be an architect. Summer, on the other hand, has hated the idea of "love" ever since her parents got divorced when she was a kid. She doesn't believe in love or fate, and she doesn't want to get overly attached to anyone because she now knows how things usually end up. They meet at work, and Tom thinks he is in love with her. He lists all of the things he loves about her. Wait, before I go on I should get something straight. These two people don't fall in love with each other by the end of the movie, and the movie makes this very clear, despite seemingly looking like a stereotypical love movie based on the first scene, which shows us that life isn't like the media tells us it is. The film isn't structured in a completely linear manner, and we see that in the future, things aren't perfect between them. Anyway, Summer makes it clear that she doesn't want what they have to be serious, but this is obviously a problem with Tom, despite him not saying anything about it. There is an obvious problem with this relationship from the start that neither of them address. Summer is too close minded to open herself up to a relationship, and Tom is a hopeless romantic that believes that she is "the one". This results in Tom losing all hope and thinking that he will never be in love again after they break up, because she was "the one", and it only strengthens the blow when he finds out later after running into her that Summer, the woman who never wanted a boyfriend, is now getting married. He hates her now, and the list of things that he loved about her at the beginning, is now the list of things he hates about her. When he looks back at their relationship he sees all of the bad moments. He is stuck in a rut for a little while, but his sister makes him realize that there were good times too, and he should remember all of it. He should cherish the good memories, learn from the bad ones, and move on. After Tom quit his job of making greeting cards and sulked for a while, he suddenly gets up and starts drawing on the chalkboard in the back of his room, mapping out options for an architectural job and eventually drawing a big city, filled with skyscrapers. He realized that he controls his fate, not the world. And now he is sitting on the bench that he once sat on with Summer. Suddenly he realizes Summer in the background. Tom has transformed his philosophy entirely since the beginning of the movie, saying that everything Summer used to say was right. But summer says that she now believes in love, despite being completely against the idea of it, because one day that she was with her husband she just knew that she would be with him for a long time. Something she just didn't feel with Tom. So he gets an interview for another architectural firm, after many bad ones (that we don't see). But he meets a girl in the waiting room. They talk a little, and Tom gets up to go to his interview. He suddenly turns around and asks her if she wants to go out sometime. This might seem strange and sudden, but what Summer has taught him is that some people just absolutely don't work out and won't. But sometimes, it just works, and while you shouldn't expect every girl to be the one, you might as well give it a chance, and be open minded.