Comments on: (500) Days of Summer: A Love Letter to a Not-Love-Story

By: jose vargas

jose vargas — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:04:57 +0000

thanks, you make me see thing I missed

By: jimi

jimi — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:29:18 +0000

Great.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 08:25:44 +0000

Nice post and especially nice job of focusing on “The Graduate” scene – mostly, missed by the professional reviews, but this is the scene in the film that most deeply moved me. I agree with you completely – Summer is crying for reasons having nothing to do with Tom. That she doesn’t explain to him why she is so affected is a signal to us that the relationship is over, and this is why in part the scene is so pivotal. There is nothing quite so painful in a relationship as learning you have lost the ability to connect emotionally with someone you once could, especially when she/he is in pain. This is a brilliant bit of character development that I don’t think I’ve seen before in quite this way in a film.

Another part that spoke to me was the bar scene, when Tom punches the jerk out, and to his surprise, finds that this has horrified Summer. I, as no doubt many others, had nearly identical experiences as a younger man and long ago learned that “real” women (unlike the ones we’ve concocted in our heads) do not respond favorably to displays of violence that are purportedly for them, but almost never really are. I think this is another really nice touch of filmmaking that gives us a clue as to some of the ways in which Summer figures out that Tom is not quite the right guy for her.

By: T

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:18:40 +0000

I haven’t seen the end of this film and i will not,cos the EXACT same thing happened to me,she told me that she didnt want to see me no more.I gotta find out what happens in my life.Summer(Zooey) is just the girl i was with.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:49:42 +0000

Haha, great post..Thanks man.

By: johanna

johanna — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:37:48 +0000

saw the movie and was great ! i completely agree with Jennifer.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:26:33 +0000

Such a great review! Bookmarking it!

I think the most powerful part of the movie was when they split the screen between reality and expectation. This happens so much in real life when our expectations and reality doesn’t sync.

I would like also to point out that a lot of hopeless romantics go into this perfect girl mentality where they try to be perfect for the girl rather than be themselves.

“where we don’t *really* know or want to know the other person’s identity.” Thank you for pointing that out! I confess i am victim to a lot of these.

Thanks!

By: mary

mary — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:14:57 +0000

your review is wonderful! this is such a good movie! and the quote that stuck with me was the exact one you quoted. “I just woke up one day and I knew…Something I was never sure about with you.”
she’s a real woman, she reminds me of myself.

By: Bianca Reagan

Bianca Reagan — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:08:02 +0000

You’re welcome for the comment, Jennifer!

By: Jennifer Gandin Le

Jennifer Gandin Le — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:56:38 +0000

Thanks for your comment, Bianca! You ask a good question; I spend 90% of my movie-watching hours asking the same thing. You’re right — we don’t see her identity much in this movie. (Like I said in my post, though, I think there are several powerful moments where it’s made clear that she does have her own rich, inner life.)

The reason this worked for me is because this movie is about a very specific kind of relationship, one that most people have been in at some point: where we don’t *really* know or want to know the other person’s identity. Where we fall in love with the *idea* of someone, even to the point of ignoring the information that they give us repeatedly(ie. “I don’t want to have kids,” or “I’m not ready for a relationship,” etc.).

Tom doesn’t care about her identity because he’s in love with the *idea* of Summer, of that all-quenching love that he dreamed about as a kid. The filmmakers made that very clear — this isn’t a movie about Summer because Tom isn’t really *seeing* Summer at all.

They’re up front about that from the beginning. This movie said it up front: “It’s a movie about boy meets girl” (not girl meets boy), and “this is not a love story.” It wasn’t one of those movies where you’re given a barely-sketched female character and then told that this is a love story about two people.

I’m impressed that a mostly male team of creators was able to fess up to a real male experience of heartbreak (self-created) and idealization of a seemingly magical woman (who’s actually just a real, complex person).