When I first saw ‘(500) Days Of Summer’, I felt so sorry for Summer. I felt sorry for the way she was labelled as ‘heartless’, ‘ a player‘ and ‘a slag’. In this film the uncertainty, the unpredictability and the realities of love, had somehow been lost in the criticism of a single character. ‘(500) Days of Summer’ is, ultimately, a film about how you can’t help who you fall in love with or, in this case, who you don’t fall in love with, and this is something that we shouldn’t forget.
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For starters, let’s get one thing straight: Summer consistently tells Tom throughout the film that she ‘doesn’t want anything serious’. She feels uncomfortable with titles after the divorce of her parents and ‘doesn’t believe in love’ as a result while also getting angry when Tom gets into a fight on her behalf. Therefore, the idea that she is a ‘slag’ is absurd – she never once sees another man while the pair are close and she tries to protect Tom’s feelings as best as possible.
Tom, however, is her polar opposite. He has spent his life searching for ‘the one’ and is a hopeless romantic. A match made in heaven, am I right?
Something that we must remember when watching ‘(500) Days of Summer’ is that it is incredibly hyperbolic. Not only this, but it is told entirely from Tom’s point of view. The music-video style scene where Tom wonders the streets to Hall & Oates’ ‘You Make my Dreams Come True’ is both adorable yet absurd. Tom emerges from his apartment after having enjoyed a night alone with Summer with a grin stretching every muscle in his face. Everything and everyone around him is perfect: the sun is shining; everyone is smiling; everyone is dancing and everyone is happy. I mean there’s even an animated bird taken straight out of a Disney princess film for crying out loud. Seem too good to be true? That’s because it is. This all highlights how much of what Tom remembers is an exaggerated version of their relationship. While it can be assumed Summer’s assertion that ‘we’ve been arguing for months now’ is also an exaggeration, as the film progresses, it is clear that the pair’s relationship hasn’t been quite the dream Tom initially remembers it as, and that you shouldn’t believe its fairy-like perfection, either.
After Tom’s sister says to him: ‘next time you look back, you should look again’, we see that Tom was blinded by his love. He was ignorant of Summer’s feelings and consequently embellished reality. Take the scene in the record shop: when Tom first remembers it, he only remembers Summer’s quirky appeal and obsession with Ringo Starr. But when Tom ‘looks again’, he remembers Summer’s wistful behaviour: she seems awkward and is trying to avoid him. As the Regina Spektor song that undermines the film says ‘you never ever saw it coming at all’ – Tom didn’t expect the end to come because he wasn’t looking for it. Indeed, a prominent theme of the film is ‘reality vs. expectations’ (as highlighted by the split-screen scene which directly juxtaposes Tom’s wishes for a perfect relationship with Summer to the realities of her disinterest in him), showing how Tom confuses between his ‘dream’ of Summer and her ‘reality’: he wants the relationship to the extent that he overlooks many of her faults to suit his expectations.
Marc Webb (the director of the film) has stated that ‘Summer is an immature view of a woman. She’s Tom’s view of a woman. He doesn’t see her complexity and the consequence for him is heartbreak. In Tom’s eyes, Summer is perfection, but perfection has no depth’. Indeed, due to Tom’s idolisation of Summer, she often appears an image of quirky perfection but also two dimensional. We are never given true insight into Summer’s flaws and even by the end of the film she is still relatively mysterious. Tom thus epitomises everything about teenage lust: he sees only perfection and no fault. Summer is conversely merely a symbol of desire, not having any distinct talents of her own, only serving as a source of Tom’s admiration, while Summer may not have been in love with Tom, it is clear she did, indeed, love him – with there being a vast, and unfortunate, difference between the two.
It is a poignant reflection of society how Summer has since be labelled as a ‘heartless player’ and a ‘slag’ – never once does Summer romantically talk to another man during Tom’s infatuation with her. In fact, it isn’t until after Tom and Summer lose contact for a while that she meets her future husband at a restaurant. Indeed, our perception of what constitutes these titles needs to change: while Summer can be criticised for allowing Tom’s lust to grow for her, the idea that she owed him a relationship needs to end.
You can’t help it if you fall in love with the cute girl in the lift who happens to like ‘the same bizzaro crap as you’, in just the same way you can’t help if you fall in love with a guy who comes and sits at your table as you sit reading. Tom’s naivety and innocence means that he has an elevated, ‘Hollywood’ style view of love: he believes that his life should evolve around love rather than just be a single part of it. This is certainly a message that occurs all too frequently in the land of Hollywood: remember ‘Twilight’? The film that taught us it is acceptable to literally give up everything for our first encounter with love? Bella not only gives up her family and friends for Edward, but her life. In becoming a vampire, Bella loses her soul and humanity all in the name of love. But what would happen if Bella and Edward broke up a few days after the closing scenes of ‘Breaking Dawn’? She would have been left alone with nothing but her broken heart and an uncontrollable thirst for human blood. Tom’s ability to rise above his heartbreak and finally peruse his passion for architecture proves that the idea that would should sacrifice everything for love is dangerous: there is more to life than the companionship of one person.
Love doesn’t always last forever nor is it perfect, which is what Tom fails to realise. ‘(500) Days of Summer’ teaches us that if you enter a relationship expecting it to be perfect, then it is bound to fail, because nothing can ever live up to the expectations of our imaginations.
Words by Juliette Rowsell
Edited by Eddie Michael
Well ,Summer does tell Tom how she doesnt ‘doesn’t want anything serious’. But her actions say otherwise. When hey met at the bar and she dismissed the concept of Love , Tom was deflated and he left her alone. Summer was the one that made the move on him in the copy room by kissing him, knowing that he beleived in love. Why did she do that? Why did she go after a guy she new wanted an old fashioned relationship?
The second time, after he fought the guy in the bar and she got mad at him, and told him they were “just friends” her left very upset. She was the one that came to his house to make up with him. She could have let that be the end of the relationship, that could have ended things completely between them romantically, but she wanted to have him, but on her own terms despite knowing he wanted something serious.
Should Tom have pushed her away after that , Maybe, but he was in love, he wasnt thinking clearly but she was, she knew better, and took advantage of his feelings for her to get a gist buddy and no strings arrangement.
Was Tom’s perception of love immature and idealized, Sure. But Summer went after Tom, both in the copy room and coming to his apartment in the rain, when she knew she was not ready for what he wanted. If it was a guy that did this to a woman .Led her on, slpet with her when he knew she wanted something he wasnt ready or willing to give. Dumps her and is marrying another woman within months cos he suddenly realizes he was wrong about love? Come on.
Tom came out with lessons on the other end, the scales had fallen from his eyes, but that doesnt vindicate Summer was making selfish decisions in pursuing Tom in the way she did.