I was at my friendly neighborhood (pirated) DVD store last week to purchase my weekly dose of films and TV shows when I spotted this title. The package stood out among the other DVDs in the rack because the cover was in white and dominating the space was a collage/ mosaic of the sun, consisting of photos of a wide-eyed girl. And of course that intriguing title: (500) Days of Summer. The parentheses are not mine, promise. But I recognized the lead actress Zooey Deschanel–sister to Emily Deschanel of the TV series ‘Bones’, (which I love). Zooey also recently starred with Jim Carrey in Yes Man. I like Zooey; she has a goofy charm about her. She’s like the fun version of Chloe Sevigny. Joseph Gordon Levitt, of course, started out in the sitcom ‘Third Rock from the Sun’. To my gay friends, he’s known as the lead star in ‘Mysterious Skin’, the Gregg Araki film adapted from Scott Heim’s novel. Based on the stars alone, the film had potential. Even if the director Marc Webb is a newbie to feature films (but following the career paths of music video directors David Fincher (Seven), Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary), and Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo). However, I passed it on because I had purchased my quota of discs. But I made a mental note of buying it the next time I returned to said shop.
Two days later I got a call from R, asking me if I had seen this film. I told him that I’d seen it at the shop but hadn’t bought it. he then started raving about it and he told me he’d drop it at my house the next day so I can see it for myself. R is not particularly prone to gushing so I thought, there must be something there. However, I also recalled the times when our opinions of films (and music) didn’t really agree so I considered that too.
Nevertheless, I saw the film (in one of my late-night attempts to fight off insomnia) with no great expectations and an open mind. And boy, was I glad to have done so. I found myself smiling within 10 minutes of the film and laughing 20 minutes later. I was in tears in the last 15 minutes of the film and by the time the credits rolled by, my heart was just about to burst. Did I say that I was prone to gushing? My apologies then. But I was genuinely touched by this film. If I remember correctly, the last time a movie made me feel this way was when I saw ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’. But of course, to compare 500DOS (pardon the text-speak) with the latter will do both films a grave injustice.
I understand that the film was marketed as a romantic comedy but I don’t think it is. For a romantic comedy it didn’t pack enough rollicking scenes and snappy dialogue. As a dramatic film, it didn’t have enough tension. I think it (safely) straddled the line between a romantic comedy and a light romantic drama. This is no mean feat to accomplish. I mean, look at ‘Lucky You’–that clunky Drew Barrymore-Eric Bana movie that had a serious identity crisis, genre-wise. Like the voice-over narrator said, ‘This is a story of boy meets girl. But let me tell you up front, this is not a love story’.
The narrative jumps back and forth within the 500 days that Tom (Gordon-Levitt) spent with Summer (Deschanel). I guess that explains the title. The premise, however, is simple enough. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t. Told mostly from the perspective of Tom, the film shows in both oblique and straightforward manners how mutable our perceptions are of other people. Through Tom’s eyes I see how the same memories can be interpreted and re-interpreted, depending on how we feel towards the object of our remembrance. In one montage of Summer, Tom’s voice-over goes, ‘I love her smile. I love her hair. I love her knees. I love how she licks her lips before she talks. I love the heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. I love it when she sleeps.’ Minutes later, the same montage is replayed, but the voice-over has turned to, ‘I hate her crooked teeth. I hate the way she smacks her lips. I hate her knobby knees. I hate that cockroach-shaped splotch on her neck.’
At its oh-so-mellow core, the film tackles the issue of soul-mates (or the belief in such). And I was grateful that it was handled in the most non-cheesy and non-mushy manner. In the scene that ties the beginning and the end of the film (day 488, if I remember correctly), Tom wondered how in the world Summer became one’s husband when ’she didn’t even wanted to be someone’s boyfriend’. Summer shrugged and said, ‘I woke up one morning and I knew’. Tom asked, ‘Knew what?’ and her stunning reply was, ‘What I was never sure of with you’. At first glance, one would think that all of Tom’s efforts had been indeed in vain. Most of Tom’s screen time was spent trying to prove to Summer that they were meant for each other, a claim that was supported by the fact that both of them shared a passion for many things, like the music of The Smiths and the art of Magritte. A claim, which was shot down in another scene by Tom’s preternaturally wise younger sister Rachel (Chloe Moretz) with one curt line: ‘Just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn’t mean she’s your soul mate’.
To know and realize that the person you love intensely doesn’t feel the same way towards you is devastating. Enough to shatter one’s belief in soul-mates–in love itself. But often times, this is the truth. When relationships end, we often get lost in the drama of things: what each party did wrong, the crying, and the drinking, the rebound sex/ relationship, the 5 stages of mourning in all its morbid glory-(and the regressions)-denial, anger, bargaining, depression, resignation, and so on and so forth. So much so that we ignore the fact that the relationship ended simply because one did not feel the same way for the other. For a social transaction to last, it requires some sort of reciprocation. If this is absent, then this relationship is doomed, no matter how hard they try to make it last, the end of this relationship is of a mathematical certainty. In fact, the more you delay its end, the more damage it brings to both parties.
Is this cruel? Yes, I would say. But hey, life can be cruel. Relationships especially. The thing is, I believe that from the moment we decide to enter a relationship, we are already setting our selves up for some hurting along the way. No matter how loving and nurturing and caring this relationship might be, we are bound to be hurt one way or another. Ignoring this fact, this reality, is detrimental to our subsequent peace of mind. Because, frankly, the concept of ‘happily ever after’ does not exist in real life.
While it is true that realizing that the object of our intense (bordering on the obsessive) feelings doesn’t feel the same way towards us is devastating, being able to accept this (cruel) fact can also be liberating. In the film, Summer soothes this pain by telling Tom, ‘You weren’t wrong, Tom. You were just wrong about me’. If the film ended with this line, I would’ve been content. In tears (okay, almost in tears, but throat clenched), but content. But it included some sort of epilogue that provided the viewer with a more concrete sense of hope than what Summer’s statement implied. This struck me again because, yes, it is true, that in the end, when we have given all of ourselves to love and its ramifications and we think we have nothing left, or if we feel nothing but dead inside, more often than not, we find ourselves still breathing, and that all we still have is hope.
Will there be a sequel called ‘(500) Days of Autumn’? I am wary of sequels, to tell the truth. Just as I am wary of getting back together with someone you already broke up with before.
(500) Days of Autumn; 2009; Sneak Preview Entertainment; Directed by Marc Webb; 95 minutes; PG-13 in the Philippines. Watch it!
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It will look like this: I’m still breathing
i love the movie as well, funny cause an ex who was sort of like an off and on fling whenever i go home to the philippines was the one who told me abt this film saying that i should watch it…we could learn a lot from it…
I watched it one early morning….and after watching it….it took me a while to really comprehend what it means to me personally…
i realized that i was tom when i was younger, full of hope that the other person would feel the same way, same depth, same sincerity, same kind of love, dreams etc…but life happens so i became summer somebody who treats relationships as casually as possible, avoiding hurt and messes…and once being forced into something deeper, would back out right away…
You are right that the film embodies us in ways we never saw…how blinded we can be, how feelings can change our perspective…i like the fact that the story also ended in a way that tom was able to see the other side of love and yet remained open to all possibilities it could bring him….
As Debbie Gibson said, ‘Anything is possible’…
I love the drama in this film… this is the only film that touches my heart where in I don’t have to pretend I am the lead actress (or okay actor)
“You are just remembering… you’re not looking into it (the experience)…”
nice blog M!