Okay, FINE, I WILL talk about (500) Days of Summer (2009)

 Okay, FINE, I will talk about (500) Days of Summer.

One thing that you should know about me, is that it's very hard for people to convince me to do things I don't want to do. I am notoriously difficult in that regard. I always tell people that I have a finite lifespan, and I will only be spending what little time I have on this earth doing things I want to, which includes seeing or not seeing films.

(500) Days of Summer came out around the time when a lot (and I DO MEAN A LOT) of movies in a similar ilk were being barfed out weekly: Juno, Garden State, Lars and the Real Girl, Nick and Nora's  Playlist Adventure or Whatever, and other twee fake deep garbage that all wishes they were Chungking Express (and failing, badly may I add). I thus, based on the trailer, dismissed it. For over a YEAR since it came out, my friends were begging me to see it, insisting that I would love it. Since I am not a rom-com kind of person, nor do I care for men projecting their fantasies onto a woman who is going to save his life--either in media depictions or real life, I was not interested. 

Finally, after promising me that the needle drops on the soundtrack and the aforementioned scene in IKEA were enough, I finally saw it. It was also sold to me as being similar to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, as an anti-love story that flips the script on the idea of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and really unpacks the lack of personhood for love-interest figures--both in media and real life.

I love (500) Days of Summer. It is not an easy film to watch, despite it falling squarely into my comfort films list. I love the nonlinear storytelling devices. I love the aesthetics, I love the settings and the costumes, I love the music used in the film, I love the hilarious narration, I love seeing Downtown Los Angeles,  and I actually love being confronted with themes and ideas that make me uncomfortable.

(500) Days of Summer asks us all, myself included in that,  to examine what we understand love to be, and how much of that love and infatuation is projection, or the fulfillment of our own selfish needs.

Liking the same things is not compatibility. Do you want someone with agency, or do you want a barely sentient blank slate you can project all of your fantasies onto?

My friends, for as well-meaning and loving as they are, always gave me crap about this scene in particular, teasing me and saying that this was me, that I 'was Summer,' that girl who "loves The Smiths" and that men would fixate on because I had the same interests or music tastes as them.

(500) Days of Summer tells the story of Tom, a hopeless, hapless romantic who falls in love with his co-worker, Summer, at a greeting card company. Over the course of the next 500 days((500) days, lol) (told in a nonlinear fashion), Tom projects his own desires and fantasies onto her, blind to any holes or cracks in the visage, until the entire thing comes crashing down. Tom fails to understand why.

Some mild spoilers head in the next video:

I think a lot of the criticisms towards Summer aren't even applicable, because everything we see of her is through Tom's vision--meaning, how much of it is real?  How much of what we see of Summer is through the lens of Tom's fantasies is even real? 

I can partially see that. On a surface level, it comes across or looks like any of the other run of the mill twee, fake-deep garbage films made during the same time frame: they have the cute scene in IKEA, they go to the movies and the record store together, and on a surface level, they seem perfectly matched. I am not going to even try to lie and pretend I am immune to the charm of this, nor the wistful sighs and longing--and sadness-- of knowing I never got to experience any semblance of normal young person life like this. But that's just it, isn't it? --the artifice of what we see, what is curated to us, versus the reality of the relationship.

There is one scene in particular that has always socked me in the gut. Summer is finally opening up to Tom, telling him things that she has never told anyone else-- ever. He makes it about him. We don't actually know what Summer has told him, because Tom is too busy treating like a victory, like a trophy. And that's a hard one to digest. Summer does not let people into her world, she does not open up to others, and Tom has been pretty relentless at this point trying to get her to open up and be "his" because he wants her and she has to fall in line with his twee school boy fantasies. I think this film speaks a lot of the fundamental human desire to want to be loved, in its many forms ("I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does."--HA!), but there are people who cannot love unselfishly.

Real love has nuance, empathy. It recognizes the agency of the other person.

It has always made me wonder--have I wasted the opening up to this person? Did they understand what it meant, that I, the most guarded person, let my shield down and let them in like this? Did they really appreciate the value and the weight of this gesture? This person made me feel safe and so I let them in, and was that a mistake? In fact, every single person I have let in in this way,  let my guard down, lowered my shield,  been made to feel safe enough to share protected parts of my heart has felt like a mistake. Like I wasted sharing that or feeling safe like that on the wrong person. I am always being criticized for "never letting people in," and "always running away," and my refusal to be soft and vulnerable--but the few instances where I have allowed myself to be vulnerable, I have regretted it.

(500) Days of Summer reminds me a lot of  the Tim Burton Sleepy Hollow, only instead of an unchecked toxic incel fantasy where the soft, sensitive emo guy who is smarter than everyone else (because he is... Not Like Other Girls) who "gets the girl" over the big meanie jock, Tom has to face himself in the mirror. He does not "get the girl" because the girl is not a thing to be got. And, sometimes, this movie makes you reexamine yourself and your own life, and think about the times where you, yourself, may have been toxic and entitled. (500) Days of Summer is also an inverse of films like HER, because in this case, the love interest talks back (um, seriously,--like, in all seriousness-- are y'all okay out there?!).

(Also, like, can we talk about the sheer unprofessionalism of dating or attempting to date a co-worker? That shit is too weird to me, honestly.)

I do think that there is a part of Summer who loved Tom, and could have really fallen in love with Tom. I think there is a part of Summer who will always love Tom. I do not think that Tom ever really loved Summer. I think he loved the idea of Summer. I think Tom loved the idea of an accessory in the shape of a girl friend, something vaguely sentiment that he could show off as a trophy, and who had similar interests as he did, so he could present a living doll trophy as an extension of himself. I think, ultimately, Tom loved himself.

There is another aspect of this film that really hits hard; it makes me sad, it makes me uncomfortable. Even talking about this out loud is uncomfortable. Whilst I am obviously not the human perfection that is the character of Summer Finn, I share vaguely similar experiences with... not being treated like a real person. A real person, with real feelings, and real, human agency and flaw and nuance. People do not love me, the love the idea of me. When I am not the fantasy they've created for themselves, they get mad at me. A lot of times, they leave. In a lot of other instances, I leave frustrated, heartbroken, and disappointed in myself that I wasn't what someone else needed. I wasn't really what they wanted. This goes not just for 'romantic' instances, but friends, too. It ranges from being the "long lost moon princess" in that weird ass online comic, or being some disgusting Spicy Latina/Pocahontas r@c!al f3t!sh fantasy. About 10 years ago (oh my god), there was a very attractive young Latino guy who wore a black leather jacket, and every day on BART he would sit close to me so he could look at me and scribble furiously in his spiral notebook (but somehow think I wouldn't notice?!) He would see me looking at him and then  run away to another train car. One day he ran up to me and handed me this CalTrain ticket he wrote me this sweet little message on. He then ran away. I never saw him again. I still keep the ticket in my wallet off and on. I still think about what would have happened, if he had just... seen me as a person, and just... talked to me like I was real. I do not think of myself as particularly special--so why do these dehumanizing experiences keep happening to me? I can't not think of these instances when I watch this film, how painful it is to fundamentally just want to be loved, to love others as deeply as I do, and how I can't be what they need because they only want me in theory--not who I am actually am.

The Take sometimes has some pretty garbage takes, but I think this is a pretty good video of theirs (and, of course, spoilers therein).

Unlike many of the bad Manic Pixie Dream Girl dumpster fires of the same era, both (500) Days of Summer and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind have aged incredibly well (although not in all areas and the lack of diversity in these films leave much to be desired). They are both really, deeply poignant and touching examinations, ruminations, on what true love is. What true love really is.

It's certainly not whatever this was, as amusing as this is.

oh HEY, would you look at THAT!