…(500) Days of Summer. At some point during this week, I have got to write about this movie. Might as well be now.
!!SPOILER ALERT!!
If you have not yet seen, but wish to see the movie (500) Days of Summer, please refrain from reading the main body of this post.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!
The other day, I finally got to see (500) Days of Summer, and I thought to myself at several times during the movie. These thoughts I was thinking were all along the lines of, “Wow. I’ve been through that myself.” I really felt sympathetic with the Tom character. Tom is in love with Summer. Summer “just wants to be friends” with Tom, despite doing things together that fall outside the typical activities which a woman who is “just a friend” of a man would do. For example, a make-out session in the copy room at the office, or going on a date to IKEA, and pretending they live there, or more intimate activities that a “family friendly” blog ought not to discuss.
While my life obviously does not have an omniscient narrator or a kid sister to take and reject advice from, I have had an abundance of women who could fill the role of Summer if I were Tom.
There were times where I thought that reality would align with my expectations of a relationship which, in the end, never reached those expectations. Not even close.
There was even one time, when something did seem to go according to plan, that it seemed that any fountain would come alive at my passing (were it not close to winter time, and had I chosen to walk past said fountain after the event occurred, it might as well have).
There was even one “Summer” who wound up essentially like Summer in the movie. (I wrote about her last year, though only those to whom I give permission to read that writing may do so.)
At the end of the movie (the 500th day of Summer), after moping about his loss of Summer, then deciding to quit his job as a greeting card writer and become an architect, meets a woman who was interviewing for an architect job. She says she has noticed him from the park bench he calls his favorite spot. They start up a conversation, and discover they have a lot in common. As Tom is being called in to be interviewed, he asks if she’s interested in getting together after the interview. She eventually agrees. As Tom walks to the interview room, we cut away to a title card, which clicks over to (1), indicating the first day of Autumn.
That’s where the story ends, but the story of my life continues. As it turns out, as I move on, it seems that those “Autumns” are more like “Summers,” but more like “lesser Summers.” There’s less emotional investment, less damage done when I’m shoved off into Friend Zone purgatory, or the Outer Darkness of the Acquaintance Zone.
!! SPOILER Ends Here
Okay, so (500) Days of Summer isn’t a scene-by-scene story of my life (especially with its non-linear presentation), but it’s close enough for me to say that it’s a movie that can be used to describe it. If I were to choose a movie that best describes the story of my life, it would be that one. Of course, names, faces, places, stories, and things like that would be changed to more accurately portray my story, but it would be pretty much the same. Though the sequels (yes, there would be sequels) would be pretty much almost identical to the original.
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