500 Days Of Summer time is a romantic comedy from 2009 starring Zooey Deschanel as Summer time and Joseph Gordan-Levitt as Tom, a sort-of “couple” who meet whereas working at a greeting card firm in New York Metropolis.
Summer time is simply on the lookout for an off-the-cuff association however that doesn’t cease Tom from imagining otherwise and falling in love anyway.
500 Days Of Summer time is hilarious and poignant, however principally it’s a pretty life like portrait of what occurs when expectations don’t meet actuality. However principally, it reveals the inevitable heartbreak that happens when somebody falls in love with an concept, ignores the warning indicators, and isn’t true to their coronary heart.
500 Days Of Summer time can also be nonetheless extremely related in 2024. As such, here are seven classes from 500 Days Of Summer time that also maintain up as we speak.
1. Be sincere about what you need. Each with the opposite individual and your self.
In case you don’t need informal, don’t say you’re cool with going with the movement.
Whereas taking part in home, making out, and flirting at IKEA, Summer time tells Tom she isn’t on the lookout for something severe. In different phrases, she doesn’t desire a relationship. (With him.) Tom agrees and says that’s cool with him.
Spoiler alert: It wasn’t. However Tom tries to persuade himself in any other case all the identical. At one level, when Tom’s greatest buddies McKenzie and Paul ask what Tom and Summer time are label-wise, Tom scoffs, insisting that labels are juvenile and that is the best way of contemporary courting. His buddies look on skeptically, and so they’re proper to take action. In any case, Tom is a licensed hopeless romantic who believes in soulmates and that he’ll by no means actually be comfortable till he finds “The One.” And this solely turns into increasingly more obvious because the movie goes on. As a result of Tom does need a relationship; a relationship with Summer time. Not informal. Not one thing situationship-y. A full-fledged, dedicated relationship.
Spoiler alert two: It by no means occurs.
On that observe…
2. If somebody says they don’t desire a relationship, imagine them.
Whereas Summer time does lead Tom on at occasions all through the film, the reality of the matter is that she did totally and adamantly talk that she was not on the lookout for a relationship. She needed to have enjoyable, and Tom was enjoyable! They’d loads in widespread, from their love of unhappy British music like The Smiths to obscure films and extra. Nevertheless, Tom took these mutual pursuits and chemistry as indicators of compatibility, ignoring Summer time’s clear message that she was not keen on pursuing a relationship with him. In different phrases, he refused to imagine what she was saying and ascribed alternate meanings to her phrases. That possibly she simply wanted time to let her partitions down and let him in.
3. Your expectations will break your coronary heart greater than anything.
One of the crucial highly effective and beautifully-shot moments is the side-by-side depiction of the misalignment that usually performs out between our expectations and actuality.
Summer time and Tom had already been damaged up for a while however had run into each other at a mutual pal’s marriage ceremony. The 2 bonded, danced, and drank collectively. It (nearly) appeared as if issues hadn’t modified a lot. They positively hadn’t for Tom, a minimum of.
A while sooner or later, Summer time invitations Tom to her house for a celebration. Because the narrator states, “Tom walked to her house, intoxicated by the promise of the night. He believed that this time, his expectations would align with actuality.”
Every shot within the section reveals this was not the case in any respect. In actual fact, Tom runs out of the social gathering as soon as he sees Summer time has an engagement ring on her finger. She fell in love with another person.
4. Love received’t prevent.
Tom grew up believing that he’d by no means actually be comfortable till he discovered “The One,” which could be a part of the rationale he put a lot stress on having issues work out with Summer time. At one level, he even admits that his emotions for Summer time make him really feel like life is value dwelling.
The reality of the matter is love is not going to prevent. This isn’t to say you should be completely healed in an effort to discover it, although. However you a minimum of need to be attempting to get your self and life collectively earlier than you share it with another person.
5. Therapeutic from heartbreak takes time.
Generally, a lot of time. And the method isn’t linear both. In actual fact, 500 Days Of Summer time is even filmed out of order for example this. The film jumps from varied cut-off dates to indicate the juxtaposition of when Tom was in love with Summer time, therapeutic from Summer time, and finally transferring on from Summer time.
6. Illusions will all the time disintegrate finally.
All through the non-linear movie, we’re proven flashbacks of Tom’s perspective of his romance with Summer time. Initially, every little thing in his thoughts’s eye appears romantic and promising. Nevertheless, in direction of the tip of the film, after Tom’s little sister encourages him to look backward at his love affair with Summer time in a extra life like lens, the rose-colored glasses fall off and we see the total image: Summer time was not keen on him in the identical means he was in her. And there have been loads of indicators that confirmed this.
7. You have to love somebody for who they really are (not for who you assume they’re).
Most likely the most important takeaway from 500 Days Of Summer time is the hazards of falling in love with the concept of somebody, and never who they really are. Tom positioned Summer time on a pedestal, hopelessly pining after her as a result of he felt that there would by no means be anybody else who he might probably love the best way he liked her. And he could be proper, however solely as a result of he constructed who he thought she was, not embracing who she really was. Positive, the Summer time he made up could have been his dream woman, however you must get up from goals finally, proper? As Tom’s Paul places it about his accomplice, Robyn:
“Robyn’s higher than the woman of my goals. She’s actual.”