Whenever I realize I'm having romantic feelings for someone I tell myself "just because he likes the same bizarro crap you do doesn't mean he's your soulmate" it works like a charm to get back on the ground! lol
Ditto, same here! This movie has always been a cautionary tale for me, and if I'm romantically interested in someone, I try to get to know them as a friend first. 💖
I love how Chloe Grace Moretz's character was the wisest person in the movie, and she's only a preteen. "Just because she likes the same bizarro crap as you doesn't mean she's your soulmate." 💞
@@macabredanceparty5277 I love that trope. Kids ask questions that we stop pondering long ago. It’s not unrealistic because they have not been influenced by society/media as long (kind of funny how young people still love Friends). They may not be wise, but they’re often closer to reality because they know little about anything else. Like the child in The King’s New Clothes story.
One thing I’ve noticed about this movie is when Summer is breaking up with Tom, she says “all we ever do is fight” and seems generally shocked when he doesn’t agree. Then when we see the relationship through Tom’s eyes, we never see much fighting. That’s how you know how unreliable a narrator he really is. He literally blocked it all out, didn’t even “see” the fights.
It’s scary how he immediately starts a fight, by screaming at her, saying they don’t fight. It makes it seem like not only do they fight, he frequently abuses her emotionally and mentally. Poor Summer :(
@@gaila.9852 I dunno man. You gotta keep an eye out for red flags like that. Its not 'calling it everything abuse' Its just keeping an eye out for that shit. Stop overdramatizing everything.
That part when Summer tells Tom “something she’s never told anyone before” I love how the narrator drowns out what she’s saying, and Tom is clearly not paying attention to what she’s saying, either.
Z Anime Exactly. It was a great way of conveying how self-centered he was about Summer, as if she only existed to be the girl of his dreams, rather than him seeing Summer as an actual human being with her own life and feelings and issues.
I think a lot of guys do this. If the conversation isn't about them or what they like, they just doze off. Tom does not love Summer or he'd pay more attention to what she's saying.
Yes! She actually does make an effort to be close to him but he does not care. He doesn't listen to her and doesn't respect her. And that is shown many times. And perhaps this is why Summer does fall in love with someone eventually, perhaps that person actually listens to her.
@@brendakerber7923 Yep, the guy took an interest in her interest and she realized she could talk to him and he would listen. Books are always the way to go haha.
A subtle clue to how Tom doesn't really know Summer as a person: When he's describing his favourite things about her, he lists superficial aspects, such as her smile and hair, but NOTHING about what makes her tick. This film is insanely clever! 😍♥️
Not sure if "clever" is the right word. As mentioned, the creator drew from his own experience and perhaps wasn't even aware of Tom's flawed perspective.
one thing i found interesting was at the end and summer mentioned that she was reading dorian grey when a man approached her and asked her about it and now he’s her husband. i was shocked that summer read a classic like that, tom had never mentioned she had an interest in books because it didn’t align with his own interests. he likes movies and music, and so we only ever saw summer enjoying movies and music. i think that scene goes to show how tom never really loved summer as her own person, but as a projection of his own fantasies and desires and interests. i think the thing summer was never sure about with tom is how she likely felt so unseen by him-even when she was opening up to him at the moment she said “i’ve never told anybody that before,” she’s blurred out and spoken over by the narrator and tom doesn’t seem to be listening to her but rather thinking to himself. the difference between tom and the man she ended up marrying, is that her husband wanted to know more about summer whereas tom wanted the validation that being with her brought him-he wanted the feeling she gave him.
yep, he never really saw her. he saw the very specific things they had in common and based his interest in her on that. if someone asked 2 personal things about her he would have a nervous breakdown.
That makes so much sense too given the movie paints her as always being like an object of desire (trophy girl)….thus why she’s apprehensive to be with someone because they don’t see her as a person but as a beacon of their own personal success by ‘obtaining’ her.
I just saw the movie and I noticed that Summer actually was reading a book in one scene, while sitting in a Cafe with Tom. He asked her if she wants to go to the movies or sit at her place. She was disconnected, but agreed to watch the movie. When she said in the end that she married the guy who asked her about the book she was reading, it made more sense, that they included that detail. Tom offered her only two options that he liked and he didn't even notice that she might not be in the right mood to invite him over to her place. He aslo didn't ask her if there's something she would like to do instead. He apparently also never asked her about the book she was reading around him and never asked her about her interests at all, even though he noticed a few strange things around her house, when she invited him in for the first time. He could have asked her about the origami tree that he was looking at, or about any other piece of art or random object, like the framed keyes or dolls or that hat and apple arrangement or the butterfly on the top of a booktower, but he only asked her about her her dreams and past relationships.
Well said. Very observant to notice that detail about the book. Never noticed it. But it all makes sense now. This is definitely a story about a boy. And it’s also not a love story, but a story about love if that makes sense.
yes exactly. that same moment struck me as well too. not only does the narrator drown her out but all he could say to her after she opened up to him was "I guess I'm not just anybody," and he made it about himself.
Tom wasn’t in love with Summer, he was in love with the idea of her, as in the “image” he created of her in his head. So even when she kept saying that she wasn’t looking for anything serious, he just didn’t listen because it didn’t match with his idea of her. But I think Summer could have discussed the relationship early on to see what was really in Tom’s mind and just called it off since she didn’t feel the same way. So basically neither of them are heroes or villains, they are both just humans😂
Precisely, you've hit the nail perfectly on the head! 👏🏾 Tom's rebound date later calls him out on Summer being upfront about not wanting a serious relationship, yet continuing to obsess over her months after they'd broken up. It's only after he lets her, and his fictionalised image of her, go, that he's able to move on with his life. ♥️
Precisely. She kinda did act like she was in a relationship, even though she said she does not want one, so they are both at fault here. He did not listen and he kept seeing his own vision of her, she did not act on what she said and in a way lead him on.
@@vuklozo but also, we only have a glimpse of Tom's perspective. His sister points out "I think you should look again". So, maybe, we are let to believe that she was acting in a relationship way, when in fact she might be having a different set of actions, that Tom decided to "forget" because it didn't match with his ideia of this great relationship they were in.
i think a scene that really captures this is one were they are both laying on the bed and talking. one moment summer says “i’ve never told anyone that before” but what she said is tuned out, as the camera zooms in tom’s face. he didn’t care about what she was actually saying, he cared about what that represented. just like with his relationship with summer, he wasn’t in love with her but he was in love with what she represented
I love how at least once a year, Joseph Gordan-Levitt says ''Guys, Tom's not the victim here please stop!' It really something when the star has to keep telling people to not idolise his character.
Totally, it's probably easy to root for Tom, since he's the protagonist, and the story is from his perspective. But his actions are definitely creepy, and once he lets his "idea" of Summer go, he can move on.
Well he kindda is, but a victim of himself and his expectation. There's nothing wrong in falling in love with someone. What's wrong is guilt tripping that person into something they don't want. I can see myself in part of him in that I want to meet the right girl, fall in love and have a family and grow old. What I don't see myself in him his that I would never force myself physically or emotionally into anyone whatsoever to a point i can look distant and unfriendly. That in turn make developping bonds with others impossible. I'm so scared of being that guy I'm doing a 180 that ensure not only i'll never do that, but i can't get close to people to even get a healthy relationship with them. Shit that got real real quick, i think i need therapy.
@@TheMajorStranger I’m really glad you at least have the wherewithal to understand that (though it seems a bit detrimental 😅). I can’t tell you how exhausting it is to experience or even hear about men essentially preying on you or your friends and it’s just socially accepted for whatever dumb reason. Even as a married woman I still have to deal with this nonsense. You’ll figure it out!
One of the things that I've noticed as I've gotten older, is that whilst Summer specifically stated she didn't want a boyfriend, yet acted like a girlfriend, and then coldly broke it off with him, ALL of this could be how he's perceived Summer. We're seeing her the way he see's her.
She wanted a friends with benefits and wanted to have fun (as she stated in the movie). I rewatched the movie last night after not seeing this movie in many years. I noticed right off the bat that Summer just wasn’t feeling Tom at all. Look at her facial expressions when she’s around Tom, she looks sad, unhappy and her smile looks forced. She probably felt as if she HAD to be nice to him because he kept pursuing her. Tom probably triggered her, reminded her of someone she knew, or she probably felt obligated to be nice to him because he was in love with her (which she knew).
@@bay9618 Tom was a moron, Summer was selfish. If someone has told you that they like you and want more with you, but you don't then do you cut them out of your life or take them for a ride till your objectives are met and then discard them like trash?
@@JohnDoe-yg5hf and that’s what make this movie such a good movie. Why do we hurt people who see the “good” in us? Summer was definitely selfish and Tom was hopelessly in love with a woman who didn’t want him.
The basic sum up of this movie: when a woman says no, SHE MEANS NO. The saddest part is all the people that thought she was a bitch for rejecting his advances. Had it been the other way around, they would be calling her 'psycho' for not accepting his rejection.
@@OddChocolate Yup, if no means no, it means no. You can't tell someone no, then agree to date and yes sleep with someone and then claim you said no from the very beginning (which, tbf, I don't think she does, just this video). You can still say no afterwards, but it is a qualified no. It is not unrealistic that Tom would be hurt by it afterwards, and he wouldn't respond to it perfectly, dating and relationships do involve your ego. In a perfect world, we would all accept 'it wasn't to be' straightforwardly, but rejection is always a challenge to your ego and cherished beliefs in some way.
@@OddChocolate Summer is the character that was vilified for like a decade before people really started seeing that Tom wasn't a great person. So it's stupid to use this an example where men take responsibility more than women do.
Tom is literally Ted Mosby, the only difference is that the movie actually points out his flaws and doesn't try to portray him as a saint like how HIMYM portrays Ted.
It’s the same for Ross Gellar from Friends too. A vast majority of his conflict was his inability to see Rachel was a person with agency. Like he spends 99% of their relationship in the show either angry/frustrated that she isn’t acting the way he wants her to act or interfering in anything that seems that can distance herself from his realm of influence. Like the one time he decides he is not going to get in her way is what gets Rachel to go back to him for good. None of his behavior has been really critiqued on the show. Maybe the only moment that comes close was the “We Were On a Break” situation.
@@crownofeunoia1907 exactly. I think Ross and Rachel both fucked up throughout the show. They never really accepted each other, and Ross was in love with the IDEA, of this perfect Rachel he created in his head since forever..
Tom was never in love with Summer, he was in love with how she made him feel. He fetishized and idealized her and refused to see her as a multi-dimensional person with flaws.
@@trejo3336 yup that was his fault Tom is a naive guy I agree, but what about after the bar fight scene, where he clearly lays it all out, that he's not interested in continuing a relationship as anything less than serious, and leaves.... if summer didn't want a serious relationship that should've been the break up point, Over, but no she goes to him, and then there is the train and wedding scenes,
I actually think even as a female, I identify with Tom in that I have been guilty of expecting men to live up to some bullshit fantasy in my head, instead of just getting to know who they are. Hmmm...some self reflection is in order 🤔.
Meeee! People say I’m summer at first glance because of my wardrobe and my “ Zooey Deschanel quirkiness”. But at heart I feel like I’m more of a Tom. I’m getting better at it but it’s still a work in progress.
Agree with the idea of coming of age. I was also the female version of Tom at times in my twenties, trying to craft the idea of a soulmate around people I barely knew because they liked “the same bizarro shit” as I did. The person whom I ended up marrying is so different than those idealized visions I had when I was younger, yet so much more loving, deep, and real. Maybe some people need to go through those failures to appreciate a true relationship.
@@jovanym2931 Yeah that's the nature of the term "NICE GUY" as used on the internet. Most of the people who determinedly think of themselves as the nice guys damage their own potential to kindness and empathy. When you've already decided your own nature and role in the world, it's easy to stop trying, even when trying is what counts.
I also love the fact that Summer highlighted how she met her husband and how he asked her about what she was reading, indicating that he wanted to get to know her on an intellectual level and wanted to know what her interests were.
This is a fantastic observation and "solves" the problem of Summer's lack of belief in love in one small gesture that gets drowned out by the grand romantic gestures that many come to expect. I'm sure many found that scene sad, uncomfortable, and heartbreaking, but in retrospect it's kind of hilarious that all it took was, "Heyyy watcha reading!" Such a perfect meeting story considering Summer met Tom by commenting on his music taste and he just stands there drooling instead of asking, "What's your favorite song of theirs?" or quite literally anything about herself.
@@WideTier lmao these hoes wanna believe in a fantasy bro .. this movie isn't about villians or heros its about hypergamy but these hoes think its about progressing to a better relationship... they shouldve showed all the scenes of Summer getting railled in the backseat after the breakup... instead they show her at the ending 'getting married' to make these hoes believe in a fairytale bro
also shows someone taking the initiative with her rather than the other way around (she spoke to Tom first in the elevator and initiated the kiss as well)
Tom's utter lack of curiosity about who Summer is as a person is really sad. When Summer opens up about a really deep fear she has, he doesn't really even seem interested in why that would be a fear for her, but rather just that her opening up to him means he's "in." When he asks her about the guy she gets married to, the story she tells him is about a guy asking a few questions about a book she was reading - something Tom probably would never even think to bother about. He doesn't really see her as a person with motivations and vulnerabilities. Is it any wonder her awful dreams are about being alone? The opening of the movie talks about what a dreamboat she is, but only implies what a life being put on a pedestal would do to someone after awhile.
Do you realize that almost all men who ask a few questions about a book aren't actually interested in that book at all? They are trying to sneak in by pretending interest in what she is reading. So actually Tom is way more honest because he simply doesn't care to pretend he is interested in what she is reading
Thank you for this, now I know why she picked that person who asked about Dorian Gray. It wasn't just her waking up and knowing something has changed. It was because she felt seen by this man, rather than be put on a pedestal.
My shitty high-school boyfriend said that to me everytime I had the courage to end things, and because I was young and didn't know better, I let my "Tom" manipulate my young mind for 5 years. I hated him, and yet i was still stuck with him because he was a relentless and manipulative version of Tom from 500 seconds agh
It's kinda true. You can't just carry on without checking in with the other person. That's inconsiderate to the point of being hurtful. But yeah, soon as someone's out it's effectively over and there's nothing you can do.
Clingy boy meets emotionally unavailable girl. Both have a yearning for intimacy and authentic human connection. Problem is one can't see the other beyond his fantasies, as a real and flawed human being. While the other wants the free demo, but isn't willing to pay for the monthly pro subscription.
@@erpherp4047 I rewatched the movie just now and I greatly sympathized with both of them. More so Summer though as even though she fucked up repeatedly with Tom by leading him on for so long (because she did, it should've been discussed sooner, their status even with her saying "I don't want a relationship" yet it was talked about eventually which is why she cut him off) she still really enjoyed his company. Tom ignored all the red flags that his loved ones were pointing out to him because he had so much hope built upon her reciprocating in this fantasy world he ended up creating due to how he grew up and was conditioned, which allows me to sympathize with him as well.
I think they picked an actor that made Tom too likeable in an era where the audience was trained to root for the main character. I was young when I watched it, so I felt bad for Tom. I thought it was a story about having to get your heart broken before finding the one. I'm so glad I learned more about this film over the last few years and am excited to watch it again with this knowledge.
I think his likeability was important to the character, shaded everything in good guy colored glasses, which means you have to actually be paying attention to realize how wrong he was.
I know for me, when I first saw the movie, I was going through a breakup, so I wholeheartedly felt bad for Tom and hated Summer. But upon later viewings, once I was over my breakup, I realized that he was a jerk who was entitled and I realized that I had indeed dealt with men like that through out my life time. So, having perspective really makes a difference.
i don't think Summer was emotionally fucked up. she was very clear with what she wanted from the beginning until the end. she never wanted anything serious with Tom. He was delusional and disregarded all that she was saying to fit his narrative and fantasies. if anyone's delusional, i think it's just Tom.
Summer feels distant. In a way, abit unempathetic and disconnected with tom in a similar way of how tom is disconnected with her. she may have said the things. But she ignored his illusion. It felt like she was 'playing' with him not so much because she consciously did, but because she didn't seem in touch with him on a human level, even though spending alot of time together. I'm not saying it's her 'fault', she didn't con him. But she is in abit of detachment. Her 'cynical' nature is basically emotional detachment. So I agree with this comment.
@@barnashoded This is it right here. It doesn’t get more simple than this. But I will take it a step further and blame her for not having the ability to recognize the delusion this man had for her and just straight up tell him, “I just want to fuck.”
Her acting is really good as Summer because you can see the exact second she lobs him a chance to connect with her and he fails. The micro expressions of disappointment are amazing. You can see the exact moment she shuts down on him.
I agree!!!! So many opportunities to be her hero, and he fails over and over. That's why she didn't chose him. Will you share which moments stood out for you?
@@pong6377 after the bar scene didn't tom makes it clear that he wants something serious, and leaves? And then summer goes to him, if she really didn't wanted anything serious that should've been the end..
I honestly never saw the ending as "happy," but a repeat of the cycle. She's a "season," as noted in this video and all he knows about her is she's an architect, meaning she may like the same bizarre-o things he does, but he's already ascribing fate to it and moving to infatuation. He didn't grow at all in my opinion. Summer did. We feel for Tom, cause we've all been there, but I never saw Summer as the villian.
Same. When I saw the ending and she said her name was Autumn, my immediate reaction was "This dude learned nothing and here he goes again." Not "oh he learned something". This dude to me, will be forever alone because he's just not gonna change.
Yeah me too I was like oh here we go again he ain't learned a thing. They even throw the counter on the screen like 'we had 500 days of summer let's see how many days of autumn! '
@Akshay 004 They literally reset the count at the end of the movie. He’s stuck in the same cycle. Maybe he’s become more motivated in his professional life, but he’s still stunted romantically. He just pushed the boulder all the way up the hill and smiled when it rolled back down for him to repeat the cycle.
Funny I saw it a bit differently. I saw it as Tom finally moving on from Summer. The "conversation" on the bench represented Tom coming to terms with the reality of the situation of his relationship with Summer, however painful it may be. Autumn represents the next season in his life, a new beginning. We don't know exactly where it will end, but we do know that he has officially moved on from Summer. Hope springs eternal. I never saw Summer as a villain either by the way.
@@sampa2nyc Oh, I actually did for a long time. Granted I was like twelve years old when I saw it the first time, but as an adult I just see two flawed people. (Aka “literal human beings.”) He did finally seem to be moving on, but I’d argue that was happening the whole time he was changing his life post-breakup. Why does his “summer” only end when he meets a new woman? Where are the days of Tom, you know? I’d argue he needs at least a few of them before he’s ready to share his life with someone
I always interpreted the ending (especially as he looks directly into the camera) not as a hint that he was “right” or that Autumn may be his “dream girl”, but that he’s not learned his lesson. I saw it as a “Oh, here we go again” ending...The cycle repeats.
Me too! Even naming the girl Autumn kind of implies there will be another 500 days of Autumn, ending again in heartbreak because he hasn’t grown in that area of his life. But it’s also hopeful in a very human way. It’s like how we all wake up every day and have dreams and goals, despite knowing we’re doomed to die the second we are born and that doing all of this is really for nothing, but sometimes we have fun 🤷🏻♀️
I took it as a metaphor that girls can be like seasons in your life, particularly at a period of time in your life. Not literal of the name Summer or autumn but different time periods in your life that you share something special with a girl. And when he found out her name was summer, he was shook and understood. If that makes sense.
I disagree. Autumn didn't look like Summer, and Autumn is not Summer. The worst was if it was a rebound relationship. But it was necessary and important that he move on from Summer to somebody else.
@@sieteocho exactly. I don't think the cycle would repeat because he kinda has something to fall back on (Architecture) when it doesn't work out. Unlike before with summer, where he depended his happiness on.
They should definitely do it!!! That intrigues me a lot! I mean, I want to know what really happened and why she lost interest in him. Why she never felt secure about being with him?? I want to empathize with her, too.
Here's what Tom should have done. Tom - "Summer, I feel strongly about you. About us. I'd like to give this a shot. I want us to be in a relationship." Summer - "Gee! Tom, I don't know. I do like you a lot and I like spending time with you. But I am not ready for a relationship." Tom - "Are you sure? Is that what you really want?" Summer - "I don't know Tom. I don't think it's anything serious between us." Tom - "Okay. Fine. I guess then we should end this. Cause, clearly, we both have different expectations and we'll just hurt each other by not living up to what the other wants in this." Summer - "Maybe you are right. Thanks for understanding." Tom - "Goodbye Summer. I wish you all the best. Thank you for all the good memories." Self-respect? Intact. Respect for other person's boundaries and emotions? Intact. Painful? A lot. But you'll walk away a wiser man.
remember kids, relationship compatibility is NOT about whether you can talk about some obscure subject for half an hour its about whether you can have an argument about something and resolve it without childish/negative behaviour like name calling or gaslighting if you are afraid of getting into an argument with your partner, aka communicate, you are NOT in a healthy relationship
Thats the thing tho, he was never ever mislead. By himself maybe, but not by Summer. Summer was clear from day one. Tom just never listened to what she was saying.
@@hungergamesgeek3198 Her actions did sometimes conflict with her statements though. She runs around Ikea with him, acts as a psuedo-girlfriend throughout much of the film and then expects Tom not to get attached even when she is doing everything to make him attached to her. Not to mention she dances with him at a wedding and again acts like a girlfriend when she is in another relationship. She's not this naiive. I totally sympathize with Summer too though. She did state that she didn't want a relationship, but at some point she was very well aware that Tom was looking at it as something else and she didn't take her foot off the gas. She kind of did what she wanted and liked the attention Tom gave her while blocking out the fact she knew Tom wanted more. And I'm saying this while also agreeing that Tom wrongly idealized Summer. I think both can be true.
Or, because she's a woman, and is supposed to want a relationship. So by staying, she's being told that she's aceepting his terms. Never mind if the situation were reversed, the implication would not be the same.
@@Ray03595 Once again, remember we only see the entire story through Tom’s perspective and he’s an unreliable narrator. Everything he likes about Summer becomes everything he hates when he’s mad. The movie shows you that he ignores the signs every time Summer doesn’t fit his romantic views. He doesn’t really know her. No means no; it doesn’t get more clear than that. If Tom doesn’t like it, he can stop hanging out as friends with benefits, but not expect Summer to return his feelings.
I feel like this video needs a male perspective, because this painfully accurately reflects the immature mindset so many of us start off with. As my female friend put it "Guys think they're in love with me just because I'm a girl you can smoke weed with and have an interesting conversation".
I legit just watched this yesterday (going through a breakup, I’m at the stage of it). And I couldn’t help but think we really needed a sequel from Summer’s perspective. What a movie that would have been.
Summer probably: I moved form Michigan to LA in order to start a new life and get myself in order. I wanted to get far away from my broken family, failed relationships and basic jobs without future career prospects. I wanted something more intellectually stimulating with opportunities to grow. I got an office job as an assitant to the manager of a big cmpany. It's not my dream job, but it's a good start. It pays enough to rent a decent place for myself, so that I can stabilize my life after moving. Maybe I'll be able to save up for college, that would be great. If that job doesn't work out, I'll still have lots of other options out here in this big city. I'd love to make new friends in this place, it's getting lonely sometimes, I don't have many people to tallk to. I'm doing my best to be friendly and open to talk with anyone I meet, but I don't want to bother other people too much either. I still have some trust issues and heartbreak to heal from, my last breakup was a total disaster, I lost myself completely in that previous relationship and I feel like I don't even know who I am as a person. That's far too much baggage to bring into a new relationship, so I don't want to start anything romantic until I give myself a chance to be my own person for a while. I don't want to lead anyone on, so I'll be clear and upfront about my priorities. There's this guy at work, he seems to be staring at me sometimes, but when I initiated a chat in the elevator one time, he seemed disinterested, I'm not sure what his deal is. He's awkward but also kind of cute and he has a good taste for music, I wonder if we could be friends. I'm glad he didn't hit on me, like that other guy who was disrespectful, so I had to tell him off, he got upset and now I have to avoid him at all times to not bring any more drama into my new job. Thankfully most of my coworkers are women, but sadly most of them are much older, so the options for closer friendships are limited. I was standing by myself at the office party, not sure what to do, since I don't know anyone yet, and the elevator guy saved me from feeling completely out of place at the moment. He offered me a drink and said his name was Tom. Finally there was an opportunity to socialise at the karaoke party. I think I was able to make friends, Tom turned out to be a guy with a sense of humor. His friend was very talkative but also very drunk, he asked me about love, so I had an opportunity to say that I'm currently not looking for love, to make it clear that I only want friends in my life right now, he called me a dude, so I guess I'm safe. I said I don't even believe in love, but Tom disagreed with my opinion, even though he didn't make any counter claim. I think I really like Tom. I did something unbelievably stupid, I kissed him at work. I'm so ashamed of myself. Not only did I ruin the proffesional atmosphere at work for myself, I also broke my personal standard and may have given him the wrong idea, I don't want to loose a friend or a job like that. I'll probably have to look for a new job and clear things up with Tom ASAP. I can't be the one to start a romance now, this is so wrong. Tom said he's ok with being just friends and keeping things casual.We have a great time together and goof around a lot. I have feelings for him, but our conversations don't get past a certain point, he doesn't ask much about my life, it might be for the better. We got into bed with eachother. I asked Tom again if he's ok with me not wanting a serious relationship, he said he wants to keep things casual too. He never asks questions or puts any pressure on me, he doesn't even initiate any further steps, he doesn't back off or state his own goals, so I guess he's comfortable with the speed I am moving forward with him. It's nice to have someone to cuddle and sleep with, without being afraid of a potential ugly breakup, just two adults who really like eachother and want to keep eachother warm at night. No strings attached. I wish I could open up more, or get somewhere with Tom, but I don't think I can. I worry he has some expectations, that I won't be able to meet, but doesn't say anything, so I'm not sure if that's really the case. Maybe it's just my anxiety. I invited him over to my place, I was very open with him, maybe too open. I don't invite people over to my place, it's far too personal, there's a mess of art and books and all things that are meaningful and sacred to me, yet I brought him there to see all that about me. He didn't ask questions or judge my mess. We were talking about our dreams and fears and I told him about how lonely I feel sometimes. I told him so much, things I haven't told anybody else in my life, he was looking at me for the whole time, but I'm not sure he listened. He didn't talk much about himself when I asked him and he didn't ask much. I guess it was too late for deep conversations, he must have been tired...
The line that stuck out to me in this movie is “remember that thing I wasn’t sure about with you. I’m sure about with him.” I use it to remind myself at times that it’s important how the other person sees me. Great movie. I didn’t see her as the villain. I saw Tom as what happens when you only see things how you want to see them and not how they are you.
I also think that it overlooks a critical part of the narrative: Tom DID actually warm summer up to the idea of a relationship. But he just wasn’t the one.
Both were at fault. Tom for not seeing Summer as a human being but just as a fantasy and Summer for leading Tom on with dates and sex even though she knew she didn't feel as he did. They both see each other as a reinforcement of their own worldviews.
How did she lead him on? She literally told him on the first date that she didn't want anything serious and was very obvious about not being super into a relationship
@@jan-mm1kb she knew he wanted a relationship and how much the lack of commitment/label bothered him. But she never set boundaries or cut the relationship off and strung him along with her indecisiveness about him
@@jan-mm1kb i agree. Tom is just another emo man who cries when he doesn't get his way. Summer set the boundaries very clearly. Never a serious relationship. And I think summer, autumn these are phases of life. Some people grow with phases of life, like Summer and even Autumn who denied him at first. But people like Tom are so self-absorbed that they cannot see anything beyond their views.
A lot of people canonize Tom because they relate to their own "fantasy" of someone. When I was in college, I used to think Summer was evill too since a friend was going through what Tom was going through. Of course I felt for my friend. I'm now 29 and I believe that my friend put himself in that position and we were wrong to think the girl was evil. She clearly said she didn't want to be in a relationship but my friend pushed boundaries in hopes that she might change her mind. Realization: a person is not evil for not reciprocating romantic feelings when they communicated otherwise. Sure, they may act flirty but isn't that on us for ignoring the big ass red flag?
Both were selfish. Both made mistakes. Neither is a villain or a hero in my book. But, whatever. Everyone has their own interpretation. Mines is that we must respect and accept whatever the desires of others are, and focus only to move towards our desires as best we can. X.X
People also canonize Tom because a happy ending with Summer would have been a fairytale: love wins all and if you try hard enough you can always get what you want. So blaming Summer is due to resentment against all those who they see as reason for themselves not having fairy-tale stories.
@@papasscooperiaworker3649 Because she didn't check in with him - even if it costs her a fun fling. She shouldn't have to say it constantly or avoid being flirty, but they "hung out" for a year. In that year one quick convo maybe a couple months in, reiterating what she said at the onset is not too much to ask. That and she didn't tell him she was seriously dating someone and invited him to her engagement party without giving him a heads up. Again, she says she wants a friendship but that's not a very friendly thing to do.
I would say the opposite- I find Tom hard to watch because I know I used to have that kind of mindset. I was never the hopeless romantic type, but falling for a pretty girl based on pretty superficial reasons, and then feeling heartbroken that she wasn't falling into my arms...
Seriously. I’ve been both characters at different times in my life. When I first saw this film though I was a ‘summer’ so I kind of understood her more at the time
when a woman falls in love with a playboy and gets her heart broken, she's at fault for falling into his charms and not guarding her heart. when a man falls in love with a woman who has stated from the very beginning that she doesn't want to be in a serious relationship, its still her fault because she couldn't change her mind and sympathize with the guy. it's always the woman. it's like their partners don't have a mind of their own.
That's not true. Whether female or male, it's wrong to tell someone you don't want a relationship but lead them on and do all things a couple would do in a relationship. I made my share fare of selfish acts in the past and used this excuse in the past so when I need to dump them a girl out of my life after my fun, I can easily do so explaining that I told them from the beginning I never wanted a relationship. Girls has used this before on me in the past as well. This is all when I was younger though and now I'm in 30s, older and have learned to be honest, communicate about true intentions and not leading someone on. No more games.
The Take has a habit of assuming that any male character in a movie is bad and any female character is good. In reality, it is very common to hear playboys being criticized for leading women on. It is also very common to hear people say that that a man was pressuring a woman into a relationship. It seems like most of the time, people are more willing to give women the benefit of the doubt when there is relationship issues and make negative assumptions about the men. I wish we as a culture could get away from that.
It's not like that, it's literally the other way around if a woman rejects a man: "it was his right" "he deserves better" (this if the guy is short, ugly, fat etc) "be MAN and accept it" If a man rejects a woman: "she loved you" "But if she's beautiful, how are you going to reject her?" you are a monster, she had feelings " I think this comes from an endless number of mechanisms that are relationships and also the "the man proposes the woman disposes" or the sentimental woman and the cold and insensitive man
She stated that from the start that's correct, but after the bar fight scene tom makes it clear that he doesn't want to continue it unless it's serious and leaves, and summer goes to him
Summer told Tom SEVERAL times she wasn’t interested in a relationship but he kept insisting, until her last no angered him. In real life, he would have had his face pepper spayed.
Unfortunately, real life women are trained to accept this sort of boundary violation as a fact of life, so you're wrong. Even though you should be right.
I've had to stop hanging out with some of my male friends in the past for acting like this. I've only seen 500 Days of Summer once, and that's because I've never liked his character.
I...wouldn't feel too confident of that? Men get away with this kind of behavior all of the time, and it's important that we recognize that in real life.
@@TheCrayonMaster I had a similar experience. I saw him as a friend and kept rejecting him the few times he asked me out over the years. Then he started treating me horribly when I started dating someone. I just terminated the friendship. He didn’t see where he was wrong either and I wouldn’t be surprised if he still thinks that today, 8 years later.
Same.I guess every women(actually everyone,but I doubt all men face those kind of women with such an audacity to act like Tom in front of them.)(this includes LGBTI+ relationships as well) face a man like Tom.I also used to think like Tom for some of my crushes,but never thought to actually impose them my fantasies in real life.And yet,I knew so many men who acted like Tom to me till I finally get enough of their bullshits.
That is kinda the point of this movie. It states it isn't a romance, and even the Take keeps framing it as a romance when it clearly is a coming of age movie. Tom doesn't has any experience either, and has a lot of misconceptions about romance. Summer was a lesson to him, and at the end, he grew up. However, our first proper relationship often isn't our last either. So then he met Autumn, as a sign he was ready to move onto his next lesson in romance.
Back in 2009, I saw this in theaters with my now-ex and I remember feeling really weird and guilty afterwards because I saw some part of myself in Summer. My boyfriend absolutely hated her and was totally Team Tom. He thought I loved the movie and even bought me a DVD of it at some point, but I don't think I ever watched it again because it made me uncomfortable. Fast forward to 2016, and we've gone through a terrible split in which he painted himself the victim. I rewatched the movie in my new apartment and it fucking blew me away. I had been Summer and my ex had totally Tom'd me, and I'd spent all those years in his eyes as the manic pixie dream girl fantasy that never managed to live up to his 2-dimensional expectations. This movie has so much more meaning to me now, ironically, than when he thought I loved it because of zoey and retro hipster aesthetics.
Realistically, both Tom and Summer did each other wrong. Summer kept leading him on despite knowing Tom wanted a relationship. And even after she broke it off, she went back to him to have sex.
@@DeathnoteBB dude it isn't all black & white, they obviously both made mistakes. summer said she didn't want a serious relationship, but she also went back to him after he made it clear he only wanted to continue if they could be serious. she was giving mixed signals because she didn't know what she wanted. they both fucked up & were imperfect & that's what makes it a good movie
@@h00liaa Except we see in the reality vs expectations scene that he imagines _a lot_ of the supposed romance. I admit I couldn’t watch the whole movie cause it just kept upsetting me but from what I know Summer is the victim here.
@@DeathnoteBB tom doing self-centered & delusional things doesn't have anything to do with summer though? judging from your comments i don't think you've had a lot of experience with relationships, because they're almost never as simplistic as u seem to think. with the exception of full-on abusive relationships, most "normal" relationships like tom & summer's are much more complex. there is no single victim. both of them did wrong, & by putting all the blame on tom you're totally misinterpreting the movie :D
I really loved this movie. The whole expectation vs reality is one of the most heart breaking things ever. As someone who cluelessly tends to fall for this romanticism himself I really appreciate this film as a good slap in the face back to reality
That why I love this move this movie is the big slap to the people who think what they see in rom com movie is true love blah.....I really love the expection vs reality part
I think he DOES reviews his own behaviour when he changes, before meeting Autum. When he met Summer, he was unhappy; he worked at something he did not like, he did not do anything for himself, he was superficial and actually a very common man. After he broke his own expectations and got sad, he forced himself to seek for hapiness elsewhere, because he tought he could find it with love, with Summer. Once he realised no one can give you hapiness but you and your actions, he chose to study what he loved, left his comfy job and searched for a new one that really got him interested at least. That's growing and changing. He understood that he had to be the one that makes him happy, and that no one would bring that love to him if he didn't had it first. Once he got passed those obstacules, he found Autum, a women who is strong, independent and beautiful as Summer was, but now he is prepared to play it in a more mature way, because he has learned. That's why he doesn't create a lot of thoughts when meeting her; he actually doubts about asking her out, and I think it's because he doesn't feel completely ready to do it. Also, I think it's a beautiful detail the fact that their names are "summer" and "autum", because its underlined that there will be a "winter" and a "spring", pointing at the fact that there's no "The One", but a series of people we met and love, and then go because nothing lives forever, but that doesn't mean its not worth it or amazing :)
Finally......someone in the comments section that actually understands the ending and doesn't put their own skewered perceptions onto the ending of the film.
@@andrewhastie1641 I don't really buy that narrative, though. Or maybe I'm just actively choosing an optimistic interpretation over a dark one, because that's what I need to hear and to see. A man can never escape himself, but he can change for the better, for there is no saint without a past. Tom has put in the work to make himself a better person; he has moved on from Summer, so I have every reason to believe that even if this relationship with Autumn doesn't work out either, Tom won't fall into the same mistake twice. I'm conscious that this is just an active decision on my part and that has nothing to do with yours being true or false, so to each their own. I guess that we humans just need to keep believing in the power of the metamorphosis.
and he's, for the first time, make the move and tell to her. He never asks summer out. And the color pattern reflect this vision: is a girl in the world that he lives. Summer is always in blue and he's in brown. We didn't know what will be, but is a NEW SEASON. 😊
"It's actually all Tom's fault for projecting and not listening!" has become such an outsized interpretation of the film, I think as a way of countering the strawman "Summer is such a bitch!" interpretation, which most assume is the default interpretation and thus feel obligated to correct. JGL himself does this. In reality I think there is more to unpack. Part of the problem is that a lot of the analysis out there indulges in a kind of ugly feminist vs anti-feminist debate and essentially forces you to choose a side, i.e. you must hate Tom or you must hate Summer, with the implication that if you find fault with Summer well then you clearly didn't understand the film, and if you relate to Tom then you must not respect women as people. Some analyses get so wrapped up in pointing out Tom's flaws and "nice guy" characteristics that it sometimes feels no one is even ALLOWED to do any critical analysis of Summer's shortcomings, or allowed to find Tom to be a sympathetic character. I try to steer clear of this trap. It's wholly possible to have a more nuanced take. To me, the story is less about boy vs girl, or egotistical male protagonist vs manic pixie dream girl, and more about simple incompatibility between two people who are just trying to figure things out in the ways that come natural to them -- Tom by falling hard and fast, and Summer by keeping a guy she's not too sure about at arm's length. In the most important scene in the film, when Summer is married and sees Tom in the park, she actually validates Tom’s romantic worldview, but explains to him that she just wasn’t his happily-ever-after person. I have had the experience of being both "a Tom" and "a Summer" in different romantic relationships in my life, and to me the film really just underscores how human relationships are complex, beautiful, and in most cases, fleeting.
THANK YOU! I was screaming this the entire video(I was actually about to comment this exact thing) the video hits on a lot of points but i really don’t think they understand the movie as a whole(especially the ending)
this. I felt a strong female vibe from this. And all the stupid women expert crap. As a girl I hate that crap. Tom is the reddit nice guy. He doesn't represent real nice guys or good guys. The video comes off so condescending it makes me wonder if the creators are single angry women mad at other women. Love is meant to be different for everyone. Some are super cute others are awkward and others don't work. There is no this genre is xxxx. The problem I people like this video ruining the genre and not letting g people just tell stories.
Also you're right. Tom and summer I think rep a lot of relationships. Where one side is madly in love with the concept of love while the other isn't but they feel bad so they try to fall in love.. but sometimes it doesn't work. And that's just love. And life. No one is truly evil Bu reddit nice guys with the fedora are lol..I met several and they don't know what no means.
Exactly, Tom just loves the idea of Summer, rather than Summer herself. Part of his growth is letting go of that fabricated image, and starting to see Summer as a real, flawed human. 💖
I remember seeing this in the theatre with my friends. When I told them how much I hated Tom, they gave me the most confused look and they said "Summer was a bitch!". Tom projected his ideals onto her entirely. There's a reason we only see Summer in scenes with Tom, Tom doesn't view Summer as a fleshed out person, she is just a MPDG to him. Who she is doesn't matter to him, it's how he perceives her in his fantasy.
The reason I like the movie is because it doesn't try to frame things in a good guy/bad guy way as 99% of movies do. Instead, it just tells a story that is simply an unfortunate situation, a mostly unpleasant experience for everyone involved and it's not really anyone's fault. That's mostly what life is.
did you watch the entire video? they literally show Joseph Gordon-Levitt retweeting, with approval, a photo saying his character is the villain never mind the interviews he and the director both gave where they say hes the bad guy that they also show in the video
Tom was absolutely the bad guy. Not for having feelings for Summer, he couldn’t control that, but for how he acted as a result of them, which he absolutely could control.
@@jamesmorriscreations Look, we all have different points of view people no longer seem to shield the truth ... they just want to be right at all costs I'm not saying Summer is to blame, I think they are both to blame. it is my opinion!
We don't actually know how Summer was in the relationship because it is blatantly and entirely from Tom's fantasy and male gaze. The only glimpse of the true Summer and the true relationship we get is when he looks back. Everything else is entirely from his fantasy of how the relationship went. You can't actually say Summer is also to blame because we never see Summer herself in the relationship in those scenes. You'd need 500 Days of Tom and compare the two to find the truth in the middle to declare that. This is the trick the movie played on purpose. It's use of male gaze is actually my favorite in cinema because it's done with the intent to trick people into ignoring the fact that it's Tom's fantasy of their relationship. That's why the male gaze drops from the movie when he looks back until he meets Autumn.
I've always seen this movie as a reality check for the romantic nice guys of the world. It's a clear message that the nice guy mentality doesn't create long term love because no one is ever going to live up to your high romantic standards. I love how Summer helps Tom understand more about realistic love and not idolized love. I love how Tom teaches Summer the value of love and that romance is real. They're black and white passing in the street and they create grey together. They each learn something and become better people. I love 500 Days of Summer. It's kind of a timeless movie because we all have those experiences. As long as there is love, people will be able to relate to this movie.
It's also should be a reality check for all people who idolize men without knowing them. I see this kind of toxicity in the Kpop community, and it makes me shudder.
Me too this movie teach us about reality and very good life lesson and big slap in the face the rom com girl who are just like tom or some boys are also just like tom
They are not actually romantic. Men convinced themselves that they are romantic, so their words match with their actions, eventually increase the chances of getting fucks.
Tom didn't care about Summer, he just love the idea of a dream girl and the idea she's his dream girl. Also Summer told him she doesn't look for anything serious but he didn't care. However to be fair she should not fuck with a guy she knows is in love with her
I don't think she knew he was in love with her, she probably thought he was somewhat infatuated with her... She said in the beginning she doesn't believe in love, she must have assume whatever he feels is not quite as intense as it actually was. And to be fair, Tom was too much of a coward to actually say that he might have been in love with her.
The reason why people like Tom is mainly because of Joseph Gordon Levitt He is so likable and relatable And the story is told through Tom's perspective
💯 agree. If this part were played by a Ron Weasley-type people would just see him as a pathetic loser. It took me a long time to realize that people don't need to change their minds when you want them to. They do it in their own time. Summer had a realization about love probably because of what she went through with Tom. It'd be good for the director to pull a Before Sunset and do 500 days of Tom, 10 years later from Summer's reflective perspective.
Yeah its like that meme that goes like "Watching a lion eat a deer in a documentary about lions. :)" Vs "Watching a lion eat a deer in a documentary about deers. :("
I just watched because someone said “if a guy sees Summer as the villain” so I watched it and... I don’t see anyone as a villain. Tom was just blindly in “love” and Summer made it clear she wants FWB. It just seemed like a coming of age story. Figuring out how the opposite sex works. I don’t think either of them were bad to the other.
This make me think of this line: "You know, he didn't trick me, he just wore me down." -- Penny, Big Bang Theory. Could you do a breakdown of the Penny/Leonard relationship in TBBT?
She may not be the bad guy, but her inconsistency is impossible to ignore. You can't spend the whole movie being like "love is not real, relationships never work" only to GET MARRIED in the end. I think that moment made people see Summer as the "villain". I think a lot of people view it as "oh, so you're capable of love, it was just that he was not enough".
For me, the fact that Tom was so relatable actually helped with the message of the film. Tom, who was clearly in the wrong, was also someone I could relate to deeply and someone who's experience I had shared before. The movie basically showed me how unfair, ineffective, and cruel my "nice guy" routines were.
He is not a good person , but i don't side with her character either , when you tell someone that you don't want anything serious with them , you don't go and treat them like such a special person by holding their hand , looking them deeply in the eyes , telling them intimate things about you , running back into their arms after a fight , and dating them for a year , what you do matters more than what you say
Exactly. People don't get that. I make sure to distance myself from someone who I know likes me. It's selfish saying, "it's because we're friends, I wanted them in my life still."
Or he could’ve been like ‘ok I can’t do something casual right now’ and have ended it. It’s not all Summer’s responsibility. She told him time and time again, that she didn’t want something serious and he’s an adult too. But since they both didn’t do anything about it, they both kinda suck. :p
I agree, but we have to keep in mind that we are in Tom's version of reality. Some scenes are shown twice in the movie and we realize things were not as shiny and happy and romantic after all: it was Tom's perspective. So yeah, I wouldn't judge Summer's behavior only based on Tom's version of the facts, which is what is shown on screen.
The love he has for her is "fish love". If people say, they love fish, they don't mean they appreciate fish for what they are. They like how they taste, how they benefit from having it (health wise, energy, whatever) Most people I know practice fish love and don't know it. They just like what their SO is giving them and don't really even know them
There is a notion that Summer is also at fault for leading him on when she knows he loves her. Yet, she mentions at the end of the movie that she was with him questioning if she actually felt the same. She wasn't feeling what he wanted her to but she was placing fault on herself for not feeling that way. In my perspective she's not dumb for staying with tom as long as she did, she's being subdued to the archetype that she needs to be.
See I’m honestly scared of being “in love” with people, not for who they are, but for the idea i have of them. I really don’t want to hurt them (and me). Like i’m terrified of my own perception on love and romance
Tbh I have this same fear. My past relationships I didn't really look at who they were and realize that it wasn't a healthy relationship but tried to project my ideals of a relationship onto them. Now I'm single and it's the best and I'm kinda afraid of doing the same bullshit all over again.
Wow same same.. but i think a good way to go about it would be just getting to know people for friendships instead of being in the lockout for relationships and then, if you realize you really like this person as a friend, as a human, then love may emerge:)
after a major break up... and a short but strong situationship where I was the summer... I now feel as you say terrified of the idea of being in love, mostly for the fear of hurting other peoples feeling. thats PTSD symptom
Danm your analysis of the "nice guy" is spot on: "He gives kindness and expects love and sex in return. He feels entitled to it." "Not so nice anymore when he doesn't get what he thinks he deserves." "He thinks he is surperior to other men; more honorable towards the woman and therefore more deserving." Or something along the lines of this.
Yep. This has always been my issue with the "nice guys". I find it to be (sometimes) an act to make up for any insecurities they may have in comparison to "womanizers" such as lack of confidence or looks. Almost like saying "I may not be as forward or good looking, but I am nice...and that makes be better than the other guy". And when their grand gestures don't have the desired effect, it is your loss and they are the victims.
I want to see a Nice Guy and a Pick Me Girl get together and see what happens. They're so "not like everyone else" that their "uniqueness" would explode and create a time-space anomaly, where they are exactly like everyone else.
I knew a guy I liked, and he felt the same. Until someone else came along, he said she made him feel "special and different" than how I made him feel, so he ignored me and hung out with her more, until she stated she wasn't interested in a relationship and became unavailable. Then he came right back to me. He continued to do it every time he met a new girl that made him feel different, those relationships went up in flames, and every time he came right back to me and said that I'd never change and understood him well, that I'd never do him the way they did.😐 we're still friends but I don't like him that way anymore. Got kinda tired of it.
I swear this is the movie that everyone hates, but simultaneously loves. You can’t help but to feel convicted by Tom’s demeanour every time you watch this.
Convicted? IMHO, I read the OP as, regardless of how you feel about the character, the way he is written makes your interpretation of Tom be “convicted” as in validated. I interpreted the choice of word, “convicted” as in, after watching the film you have a strong “conviction” in your POV of Tom. But, that’s just my interpretation. Only the OP can truly clarify the way “convicted” was intended to be used. [+]
Agreed. She told him something she's never told anyone else it's quite possible that if he had actually listened and cared he'd be the one she'd find herself married to. But if you tell someone like Tom that they turn it into "pretend to listen pretend to care" adding it to more steps in the "Unlock Love"
If he actually listened, he would have been oh..you don't want a relationship... i do... guess we should call this off, you're a beautiful person bye! Imma go find someone who actually wants what I want (=someone who wants me as much as I want them)
Wait, didn't Summer tell Tom she wanted to "just be friends" and then randomly make out with him at work? Fair enough Tom is an infatuated "nice guy" but Summer also gives mixed messages throughout their relationship by saying we're "just friends" and then doing stuff beyond the level of friendship.
This is what I thought and what confused me a lot, but I think that you can still find someone sexually attractive but not romantically attractive. That’s where I think both kind of got lost.
@@bennett7542 yeah I get that, it's one of those situations where there's some wrong on both sides. Neither of them is really the villain because just like in real life, things aren't just black and white.
Indeed! If I were Summer, knowing that Tom wants a serious relationship, I would respect him, keep a distance so he can get over it and find someone new. Instead she just keeps showing up or tries to contact him (looks him up in the park, invites him to a party where she shows him she is getting married to someone else, sends him e-mails, ...). In my view, she also does not listen to him or respect his feelings. And since when do friends have sex? This world has become so superficial, people just having sex as if it means nothing, you can do it with anyone, you don't have to love them. Using people as objects. Makes me sick really....
Neither are hero or villain, I see it from a relationship attachment point of view where he was and anxious preoccupied style and she was a dismissive avoidant style and they brought up their childhood trauma and he put her on a pedestal and her as an avoidant was pushed away by him for those reasons.
I'm convinced that the "Reality vs Expectations" scene is meant to show us that we can't trust a subjective narrator. It's the moment where Tom realizes that things are not going the way he wants, but also the moment we realize that some scenes we saw in the movie might just be the "expectations" ones. Not the reality.
I watched this film 3 times in my life. Once when I when I was a preteen, and I agreed with Tom. Then again in my early 20s, and I agreed with Summer. Then one last time, in my mid 20s, when I actually experienced a relationship like this. It was then that I realized we all f$%ked up on some level and that this was needed to learn that
Even this channels misunderstands how this movie isn't a romance movie, but a coming of age one. The movie itself outright states it isn't a romance, because it is about Tom growing up in the romantic departement, not actually the romance. He sees a girl (Summer), attempts a relationship with her when she doesn't want to, learns from his mistakes and actually seems ready to attempt a genuine first romance when he meets Autumn.
Summer was actually the one who who clearly had a character growth in the movie. She started as cynical who didn't believe in love, marriage, etc. Which the movie explains that that's related to her own divorced parents I believe. Fortunately tough, she found a partner with whom she's willing to risk it all and get married. It's just that the guy isn't Tom. All the hints were there.
YES! I totally agree. I always saw it as, when she ended it with him, it was actually the biggest growth moment for her, because she realized they were both drowning in something that wouldn't work. Tom just didn't see it and didn't care because he was in his feelings.
Character growth should be related to a moment in a film which causes the progress of personality. Here we don't see one. It's just beginning with one Summer and finishing with another. That's the point which I don't like about the film - it's not clear why she refused marriage in the beginning and then simply accepted it only a few months after the break-up.
One thing I feel isn't discussed enough is this: I don't dislike Summer because she didn't reciprocate Tom's feelings. I disliked Summer because of the way she acted with him after they parted ways. She knew how he felt about her and that he was still trying to fight to win her back. Tom does have a valid point that it was cruel of her to dance with him and act flirtatious with him at the wedding and then to invite him to a party at her apartment that she shared with another man that she was in a serious relationship with. I agree Tom romanticized her and never truly knew her but let's be honest. Dancing closely, flirting, and inviting someone who has made their affection clear to you to a private party when you know you don't feel the same is not a clear way to show you are not interested. It honestly makes sense that Tom would think he was back in the game after the way she was behaving. And then later when he asks her why she acted that way with him when she knew how he felt about her and she simply responds "Because I wanted to" it shows that she too is a selfish person. I think a lot of people walk away feeling like Tom is the good guy because yeah he was delusional but he never acted in a way that was meant to hurt anyone. Summer acted intimate with him knowing he would likely be hurt when he realized she was with someone else and intentionally left that detail out when reconnecting with him at the party which was cruel.
what you say really describes a problem in society, the selfishness. « I can do what I want to, I a not responsible for the other’s feeling ». Even if person says something to the effect that she doesn’t want a serious/long term relashionship, she acts like she wants one, and sends mixed signals. And don’t tell me that the guy should learn to accept a casual relationship or a friends with benefits situation. These relationships may be acceptable on the social front, but they don’t necesserilay suit every person.
thank you!!! i’m so tired of seeing everyone side with summer 100% because we’re being SOO unrealistic about tom’s character, especially in this video. its realistic and natural for tom to romanticize a person they have feelings for and aren’t very sure of what’s going on with that person, like in grade school how we have crushes on people we barely know. although it’s childish, it’s not necessarily selfish or cruel, it’s just immature. we’ve all been a tom where we want something we can’t necessarily have and believe that we’re special enough to get it, it’s natural to feel that way!! we all think we’re better than we actually are, same with summer!! she felt like she wasn’t responsible for what she had with tom but she entirely played into his infatuation knowing how he felt about her. yes, she did say she never wanted a relationship but personally i think it’s unrealistic to get into an intimate relationship like they had and not expect someone to catch feelings!!! tom has an immature idea of love and summer has a too rational idea of love. there’s not necessarily a right or wrong, but to say that tom is a nice guy is kind of a stretch, i think his character is incredibly common
I think your comment was very kind and human so I'm going to allow myself to jump in. I have been the Tom in the relationship, it took me so long to see it and accept it. It was my responsabilty to back off when the other person told they didn't want anything serious. Nevertheless, I kept getting my hopes all up when the other person would do something nice for me. All those hopes were crushed just like Tom's. The party scene is the only one I don't relate to Tom because when I happened to find that person by chance, I used to keep things light, a bit distant, no physical, no intimate, no flirty because I knew the other person always LIKED me. They always liked my personality, my jokes, my takes and my body, they just didn't LOVE me. So, I kept my emotional distance and that's what Tom could've done in the party. He can't control how Summer behaves, but he can keep his feet in the ground and specially if he had taken the time to KNOW Summer, to UNDERSTAND her behavior he would have known that Summer's attitude meant anything serious, as always. But he didn't, he didn't stop to analyze himself, his actions, his thoughts and he didn't know Summer enough, he only knew his version. And that's a take from a person that cried my eyes out for Tom, always felt identified with him and I loved the movie ending because I just got out there to find my "Autumn" ... That was 10 years from now, it took me that long to accept Summer didn't do anything wrong, he could have always retrieve himself from that situation as did I and as any adult can. Sorry for the long text, I'm guessing no one is reading all this hahaha
This is exactly my ex did to me. That dude was in a relationship with a new girl but would send me messages like missed you today, happy rose day. He also told his friend to tell me to call him. He knew I wasn’t over him yet. Still he did this. But thanks to his selfish actions, I finally got over him.
As a nice guy who watched this last week, this movie is so accurate it’s scary… have literally been in the exact situation to many times. Its a real self-reflection type watch.
This is a narrative that should be explored more because it is painful. So painful in fact that it makes people date someone they don’t care for and feel guilty and/or a bad person for not being invested in someone who is such a catch in many ways.
She did say to him " I'm not looking for anything serious", although she stays with him and kept encouriging him, she never cut it from the roots, knowing that he was madly in love with her. I think they both did wrong.
She enjoyed his company. He could have walked away at any point when he realized she wasn’t offering what he was expecting, that was HIS responsibility. But instead of adjusting to reality he tried to force it.
@@evaphillips2102 At the beginning of the movie you could make this argument. But there was a point in the middle of the movie where he did walk away and refused to continue the relationship unless she took the relationship seriously. He tells her if she wanted only something casual that it had to end there and then. Now, if Summer really wasn't looking for anything serious, then obviously there is only one thing that should have happened at this moment. They break up. It's done. It's over. Tom got foolishly over-invested because he watched too many Disney movies. Pack it up. Nothing more to analyze. But of course that's not what happens. Summer goes back to him and essentially tells him she's ready to start treating this more seriously. To say she wasn't "looking for anything serious" is not an accurate depiction of what happened. But that's why this movie is awesome, they are both inherently really flawed individuals. To devalue either one of them to one action is black and white thinking and doesn't depict who they are as overall human beings.
That sounds nice guyish to me tbh. Just because someone has sex with you or spents a certain amount of time with you, it doesn't mean they lead you on, when they initially say that they don't want anything serious. Sure, she could've stopped meeting him sooner, you can argue that she was irresponsible in that regard. But he could've taken her stance on the topic more serious, which he didn't. He also continued to meet her. On a personal note, there are still plenty of comments from many people claiming that sex and love are not separable, which is simply not true. There are enough people who can, Tom apparently isn't one of them, which isn't terrible at all. But Summer was and was it until the end of their relationship. I see Tom more in the wrong for trying to overstep those boundaries although she made her point clear.
@@tuffluffghostSummer does tell him from the beginning she doesn't want something serious, because it is better to be transparent with this stuff from the start still leave room for things to develop into something serious if the impossible (love) happens. I feel like what most guys miss here is that Summer is human too, she leads on with not wanting anything serious, but she also gives him a chance to step up. There are several moments when you can see how Summer actually gave the guy a chance, and he misses it completly, most obviously when he decides to fight the guy in the bar, with when she straight up asks him how he actually likes her, with how she sees how uncool he reacts once she tells him she is not official with him, or when she tells him that she likes Ringo Starr, and he doesn't even listen to her and react to her, he is busy telling her that she is wrong and that her reasoning is not logical. She on more than one occasion feels that he is not curious about her as a person, she is just a girl he has attached a label on. She indeed gave him a chance, but he also didn't make the best of that chance, and she broke up with him eventually. And what is not working out here is, that she is emotionally aware of what she can handle. Tom is not, he from the beginning is an insecure guy that flip flops about how he thinks this pretty woman already has all the control over his emotional state when they have exchanged 5 sentences with eachother. Even until the very end, he has no concept of selfrespect at all. Any selfrespecting person would walk out of a situation that is hurting themselves, no matter what is causing the pain, if he noticed that Summer has already hurt him, and he is not a stable enough person to cope with the pain this person causes, he is even going to be less stable in a relationship with her. He never reflects on how unhealthy his obsession with her is, he also has no agency and continues to blame her for his emotions.
This movie is a cultural hallmark (no pun intended) I was 21 and madly in love in a very toxic relationship. Before we had defined toxic behavior, and it could be easily misconstrued as ‘romantic’, before topics of manipulation, and lack of boundaries, were an open conversation. Tied to relationships born from ignorance, perpetuated by “pop songs” and Disney’s “happy ever after”. Now at 32, with my ideas of romance redefined especially during this pandemic, what partnership and family truly mean, and not what they do for me. The unveiling of our collective narcissism and self importance, is a welcomed wake up call. Life is messy and hard, love is the most important thing you can give and receive but it’s not what defines us. The conversation surrounding 500 Days has grown and evolved with a generation and I’m very happy it exists in a space that sheds light on our own misconceptions about love and what we think it is versus the very real power it wields. Much respect to the take and many other essayists on this platform for deconstructing such a pivotal moment in our culture and our personal lives ❤️💔❤️
Did anyone also notice the entire communication during and after the showing of The Graduate? She is literally sobbing and all he asked is is “You okay?” what he could have said was “Hey, are you ok? we can talk about it after the movie” and then after they left the movie, she says “Im just being stupid” and Tom leaves it alone instead of actually trying to comfort her. You cannot force someone to vent to you but he should have encouraged it a little more instead of just accepting it. That’s not normal movie behavior so something was obviously seriously wrong and he’s so focused on pleasure (going to the movies together) he doesn’t really consider Summer’s feelings..then Summer mentions she is tired and thinks she going to call it a day. Tom accepts her decision only for a brief second but once again romanticizes the situation and ultimately ignores her request and says “PANCAKES” Tom your pushing boundaries…She literally says she’s tired and wants to go home and he’s not being considerate and I honestly don’t blame her for breaking up at the restaurant. Tom has toxic traits and so does Summer. Summer expected Tom not to get attached to her when sex literally creates emotional attachment and it’s scientifically proven…she invited him to a party without telling him PRIOR she was engaged. As a adult, the mature thing to do is give people heads up and communicate what’s going on in your life especially given her and Tim’s history. They both had toxic traits period.
Gosh, I am still not that sure about this one. Personally, I mostly see this interpretation everywhere and not the other one - and it has a lot of good points. But let’s be real here, Summer is also acting quite contrary towards him and toys with his feelings. He confesses his love for her, she says she doesn’t want a relationship, yet always follows it with some obviously romantic and/or sexual gesture out of what’s probably just boredom. They both really should have been much more clear with each other upfront (I realise she says she doesn’t want a relationship but she obviously changes her mind in the end, so Tom is probably mostly just not the guy for her, which is okay). I always thought the beauty of the film is in that is isn’t anybody’s fault per se but that it tells the story of two people making mistakes and miscommunicating.
Interestingly enough, men are the ones who convinced me that “you are nice/sexually attracted to me, and I feel the same so you owe me a relationship, no matter what you clearly stated about us from day 1” isn’t even a sympathetic position. Showing attraction to someone isn’t toying with their emotions if you’re clear that you don’t want to be in a relationship with them, which she initially _and_ repeatedly stated. So much so that he argued and berated her for daring to not want a relationship with him. He knew the deal, he just decided she didn’t have the moral right to not be his girlfriend, and spent their time together punishing and rebuking her for that instead of enjoying what she _was_ willing to willingly give (sex, attention), which was a decent offer. Her marrying someone else isn’t relevant in any way to what happened between them. I keep thinking of _you don’t own me_ by saygrace 🤣
@@danielle8571 I see what you’re saying and I do agree with most of it. I am just trying to point out that it wasn’t so simple - one of them just should have distanced themselves from the situation. If someone is so obviously infatuated with you, do you keep coming for emotional support or sex, even If it’s obvious they’re misinterpreting it completely and it’s only creating tension and desperate feelings? I don’t know, I would probably feel really uncomfortable with it and find someone else to just hook up with. Especially If you work with them. Summer obviously has no obligation to be with him or apologise or anything and you’re right, she doesn’t owe him. I can’t help but think though, If the roles were reversed, the narrative would likely read “naive romantic heroine keeps getting used by a shallow douchebag until she finally finds Mr. Right”. Tom doesn’t pay attention to her and how she feels, that is his own fault and blindness. However, Summer kinda does the same thing. Which is why I personally think both didn’t handle this that well and that’s what I actually really like about the film - everyone makes mistakes and figuring out relationships can sometimes feel great, frustrating and dissapointing at the same time.
@@Mirabelle176 I agree with you. To me, they were both in the wrong. Tom should have listened to Summer. But Summer should have done the same thing. If a guy liked me, but I didn't like him the same way... I'd just avoid doing things that would give him the wrong idea. The unreciprocated feelings would just make me feel awkward. But Summer spent a lot of couple-y and sexy time with him and dated him (exclusively too) for a year. It just didn't seem so "casual" to some people. And Tom, being the emotionally vulnerable and hopeless romantic guy that he was... held on to every glimmer of hope she'd throw at him. Not saying that it was right. He was acting like some humans would do. I was also a Tom... and believe me, "love" could get really addictive. Sometimes, you'd do anything to keep it going even though it would be a big mistake.
@@fls6201 Yep, exactly what I'm thinking. I think I have been both Tom AND Summer in my life, most people probably have to some extent. It's pretty human (even If inadvisable) to read into things If you really like someone - and let's be honest, going on dates, playing house in IKEA and sleeping together isn't just any old "thing", they are very specifically "relationshippy" things. I had a friend in my close circle who was in love with me and while I don't think I owed him anything (and didn't actually give him anything) I was careful not to flirt or give him way too much attention - not because he's a guy and somehow he owns me but because I didn't want to confuse him or hurt him...my biggest crush from high school did the same with me and I'm grateful, because as much as I inflicted that crush on myself (and he wasn't responsible for my feelings) it was painful enough without the dichotomy of "he says one thing but does the opposite". What a rant, sorry!
My point is he _didn’t_ have the wrong idea. He knew the whole time. He simply decided that she didn’t matter enough for him to respect her decision. And that she was the perfect mannequin for him to project his dream girl onto He’s not a victim of anything but his own narcissism really. There has to be one moral standard for both of them. And everyone. Being responsible for communicating your own standards and standing by them, and respecting what is communicated back. That’s a good one. She did that. No relationship. Sex. Affection. Until one of us is no longer interested. He didn’t. No relationship. Sex. Tantrums and gaslighting. Until he can no longer pretend she’s his dream girl. Then guilt trip. She wasn’t even a real person to him. Which is why I disagree even about her owing him sympathy. He needs stern a reality check before the next girl comes. Most importantly - Even if she had wanted him, his entitlement and disinterest in her as a human being would have made it impossible. 😖 Edit: She didn’t need to do anything different because the only one dissatisfied with the outcome is him. The end didn’t match up with what he wanted and was clearly told he couldn’t have.
I’m confused. Was the director’s intention to show how the nice guy isn’t such a nice guy or to make a revenge movie against his ex? Because those two intentions go directly against each other in my opinion.
I think the movie is a gender flip on "the player and the one", you know where the guy is a player until he meets the one. it's a subversion because the story is usually told from the perspective of the one, or is at least about the one. Tom, in this case is not "the one".
I think he is also satirising himself a bit, too. He relates to Tom's character but he see his mistakes better than Tom does by the end of the movie. Doesn't mean all the hurt and anger have gone away tho, even if you acknowledge your part in it and take responsibility. I think it's somewhere between a work in progress and a step forward.
It's about how we grow as partners. It's not a romance movie, but a coming of age one. Tom basically knows nothing of romance, he's like a little kid with unhealthy misconceptions. Summer basically was a lesson for Tom, and the girl he met at the end, Autumn, was going to be his first relationship, but our first ones often aren't our last ones, so Autumn was going to be another lesson for Tom. If you understand that, then it's easy to see the director is showing how he grew as a romantic partner by using Tom and that like Tom, he didn't treat his ex like a human being he needed to understand, and that in the end, both the diretor and Tom don't really know what 'she' is like.
I think he acknowledges the errors of his ways because he couldn't understand why his ex led him on then got married. He clearly looked deep into himself and realized he probably wasn't thinking of her and was just infatuated.
I like the moment when Tom gets into the fight. He does it because of his fragile ego and masculinity. But he is deluded that fight is for Summer' benefit
''I love how she makes me feel ''. Sounds like my ex. Loving someone solely for the way they make you feel, and not for their own unique qualities and quirks, is really immature and selfish.
i don’t think there’s anything wrong with loving the way someone makes you feel. it’s not the sole thing that you love about someone. but i love that my partner gives me feelings ive never felt before. that doesn’t mean that’s the sole reason i love him.
@@kbcutie101 that's completely true! I think the problem is that Tom was in love with the way his IDEA of Summer made him feel. Remember this film is still in his perspective so who knows what else Summer has done to hint that she doesn't want anything with him and that he doesn't really care for her a person that much but just like the idea that she makes him feel good
It reminds me of most relationships I had in my 20s but that's how we learn. I always loved the expectations Vs reality scene, I think about it often to bring myself back down to earth when I romanticise things/people.
@Akshay 004 if had to guess Tom was suffering with depression the whole time he was with Summer. That's not a great place to beif you want a relationship. While Tom is doing better all on his own I'm not sure he has the coping strategies to deal with another relationship. Because he never dealt with his core issues he might end up in the same place.
@Akshay 004 it's a step in a right direction but just the first step. He can easily backslide into his old ways and the end of movie kinda foreshadows that.
@Akshay 004 I sort of hated Don Jon but since I haven't seen it a while it's hard to remember why. All I remember was the guy was superficial and his girlfriend was superficial.
@Akshay 004 While I agree rom-coms can produce unrealistic fantasies, there's nothing wrong with escaping into light-hearted fun once-in-awhile. We just have to remember to separate the movie from reality. It's so interesting how humans haven't developed mastery over that yet, but it's possible.
I have to post this. I love how everyone talks about how Tom didn’t listen to Summer when she said she didn’t want a relationship, but no one mentions the notion of Summer never listening to Tom who was adamant that he wanted a relationship. To me, this film was awesome because it showed the audience that humans are flawed.
Exactly especially considering the fact that due to his shyness she made the all the advances that one would assume to lead to a relation ship . I feel she contradicts herself a lot during her relationship and it would be something that confuses Tom . However I still do believe toms naïveté paired with his hope is ultimately what lead to this destined to end relationship .
Exactly! We can sit here and make Tom the villain for not listening to Summer, taking into account her feelings and understanding her.......when she is exactly guilty of the same thing? Tom wanted a relationship with her, Summer wanted a fling. That's what her relationships all were before she met Tom and that's what she expected Tom to be. She's used to guys falling for her (the narrator points this out) so she doesn't really take into account that he has actual feelings about her. That's why she doesn't understand his behavior at all. But that's why Tom was *right* in the end. Summer did end up finding love and her soul mate, which is what Tom was looking for and thought Summer was........Summer wasn't sure about it with Tom but she was sure about it with her husband. However, you can sympathize with Tom in how he felt led astray, especially in the expectations vs reality sequence. Summer was never upfront that she had gotten engaged. Why? Why hide this from Tom? As someone commented below, she probably didn't care about his feelings. Isn't that what this video is arguing that Tom did to Summer throughout the entirety of their relationship? Everybody who is defending Summer's behavior and going after "nice guy" Tom is not understanding the film whatsoever. Both are guilty of doing the exact same thing to one another. JGL liking that post about Tom being the real villain is also defeating the purpose.....he's going against the skewered perception that fans have of the film defending Tom but also strengthening the skewered perception that Tom is the villain. Both are technically the villain in this relationship......or we call it what it is: these two were incompatible with one another and it was a doomed romance.....but it was an important romance for the both of them.
@@melonhead8052 It was both though. Tom was too naive and lovestruck to see the problems but Summer not outright coming out and telling him the issues is on her. Neither one did a good job at communicating things to the other......that is ultimately what killed the relationship.
I feel like Summer is still partially at fault. I've watched this movie multiple times since it had come out and gone through the "Summer is a bitch stage" then the "Tom is an idiot stage" which is where I feel like most people leave their interpretation but I still think that both of them contributed to what happened. They were both showing red flags and it was obvious that Tom felt for Summer way more than she felt for him. Summer is not an idiot and could definitely recognize that Tom was way more into her than she was into him. She could've ended that whole relationship way earlier and the impact on Tom would have been way less devastating. I'm not saying she led him on because she was honest with him but it was clear he could not handle the relationship that she wanted and should have left him as soon as that was obvious.
How is everyone so blind! YES Tom has responsibility for his emotions, he should’ve woken up and LISTENED to Summer when she said she didn’t want anything serious. BUT it is also SUMMER’S RESPONSIBILITY to not string someone who is clearly IN LOVE with her along. Just saying ‘I don’t want anything serious’ is NOT ENOUGH when your actions CONTRADICT you! She is selfish. She knows Tom for the meantime gets her needs met AT THE EXPENSE OF HIS. She knowingly BREAKS HIS HEART and doesn’t GIVE A SHIT or do anything to try to ALLEVIATE HIS PAIN (like breaking things off if she wasn’t that into him!) She has a classic AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE.
As a woman I agree that both the man and woman (Tom and Summer) are at fault here in different ways but they were both young and had a lot of growing and learning and maturing to do. Although I do believe that Summer was considerably more mature than Tom in that despite her playing with his emotions she eventually realized she could never be happy with him and love him, not the way he loved her, not the way he deserved. And she confronted that realization by calling it quits for good instead of being emotionally avoidant and going back to him again to sleep with him and lead him on, like she did previously. Tom continues to pine for her knowing she doesn't want the whole relationship marriage ordeal he wants and feels blindsided when he finds out not long after she's engaged to someone else. And he's all sad and whiny cause he feels entitled to have her like she's some kind of object/trophy cause he "put in the work" that not many other men are willing to. But in reality he never cared to know the real her and idealized her, put her on a pedestal she felt she could never live up to. Ultimately that pressure to be the dream girl Tom thinks she is and not just a normal human being was a ticking time bomb that did just that, explode. And upon giving 500 days a second watch, you understand eventually that Tom wasn't just betrayed like that the way he thinks he was, he deliberately missed the signs seeing only the romantic part of their relationship that he wanted to see and blatantly ignoring the rest (how she was feeling, her emotions, her pain, her turmoil, etc.). And you realize too that what her fiance did differently from Tom was wanting to get to know the real her (he comes up to her and asks her what she's reading out of nothing but genuine curiosity about her, not as a gateway to win her over).
I feel the ending isn't stating that what Tom thinks is true. With the whole seasons theme I think it's more about letting the idea of "the One" go and see life and love as ongoing opposed to static. Summer learned to love from Tom and he learned from Summer to not build his life around someone else but himself (and hopefully being more aware of his toxic behavior).
The reason this movie is so "misunderstood" is because most of us have met a person who would be the one, but it didn't simply work. In other words, we would like Tom to get Summer, as a form of redemption for what happened to us, and since we relate to him, we get to hate Summer. I had my one who simply didn't want to be with me, and after watching this movie, I sympathize with the guy, but I ultimately realize it was all my fault for not realizing she didn't want anything from the beginning.
I never for one second thought Tom was in the right here. I've been Tom. I can point at why though I don't know if it's the same for everyone. My mom is one of those moms that if I mention liking a girl suddenly my mom's reinforcing every delusion infatuation gives me and my friends did the same. I've rarely had friends just straight up be "dude no just no. Instead I'll say something stupid like "But this has to mean something right?" and they're all quick to agree and reinforce the delusions. I spent years even as I dated and married other women hyper focusing on "the one that got away" who was still a friend. I took the fact that at one time she had a crush on me and blew it up into this hugely romantic timelock thing where I was just putting in the time and finding the right combo to make her like me again. Romantic comedies are only a part of it. I think a lot of Nice Guys are the guys that struck out when we were young with friends, girlfriends etc. So we're bad at social cues and we have to learn all of them from movies, TV etc. And while we understand "people can't really fly like Superman" we don't think the "It's just a movie" about things like social interactions. Especially when movies cast guys like us as the Heroes. Then we make friends in adulthood who never question our framing of things. "Well but she said this, in this circumstance" should have been "that's just pointing out something funny not her saying keep trying" which is what they should have said when I fixated on her pointing out she had a crush on me when we'd met during a conversation years later. I kept pointing at her saying it "out of the blue" but really it was in context of the conversation and that mattered. So people know we were in the car driving by a skate park. She said, "Man I always have had such a thing for skaters" and I said, "Well you remember I was a skater when we met" and her response was "Yeah I used to have a crush on you" She was just commenting on it not trying to be all "and I still do" So when I saw the movie I knew Tom was in the wrong and reading too much into things she did say and never asking what she meant nor caring.
I like that you pointed out how friends and family can mean well, but help fuel toxic thoughts and behavior. I try never to be that kind of friend or family member, because people end up getting hurt.
Insightful , i liked a girl for the last 3-4 years and i finally asked her out last month and she said no , it was tough , drank some(a lot)alcohol but hoping to move on 👍probably for the best
Yes--I suspect the director wanted to deconstruct romantic fantasies, but the screenwriter wanted to make a Revenge film against the woman who crushed his romantic Fantasy by marrying someone else...
We don't have to understand her though. It's okay for the film to just be from a limited perspective, as long as by the end we can see why that perspective is flawed. We don't need to know Summer's inner process or why she thinks the way she does. The fact is that she said she didn't want a relationship, and she didn't vibe with Tom, and that's reason enough for her to have her decisions respected.
@Akshay 004 I think that is the price for ignoring red flags with Summer. It's easy to blame people rather than admit that it is half his fault and half the truth that she is not solely for him.
My interpretation of the film has shifted about in the nearly 12 years since it was released, but what's consistently impressed me about the story is that it never felt like either Tom or Summer were "the hero" or "the villain", that neither one of them was being entirely honest with themselves or the other, and that no one is "fixed" in the end by finding The One.
I think the point of the scene where he asks Autumn out is that he’s grown enough to have some courage, which he didn’t when he first became interested in Summer
I agree! I hated tom but I do feel like he at least had some sort of character development, we see in his relationship with summer that he was always taking on the passive role and expected summer to take the more active role because he was stuck in the mentality that he needed a manic pixie dream girl to come to his rescue, but with autumn he was the one who initiated the date which shows that he's progressed past the state where he expected people to do things for him. we don't know if he's still going to be putting autumn on a pedestal, but at least we know he's grown somewhat from his relationship with summer. that's how I saw it at least.
Whenever I realize I'm having romantic feelings for someone I tell myself "just because he likes the same bizarro crap you do doesn't mean he's your soulmate" it works like a charm to get back on the ground! lol
Ditto, same here! This movie has always been a cautionary tale for me, and if I'm romantically interested in someone, I try to get to know them as a friend first. 💖
Never seen this movie before but I wish I has cause that line would have saved me a lot of heart ache
Brilliant!
I'll give it a try next time!
Smart. Plus, a lot of people will say they like what we like to have us believe they're our soul mate.
I love how Chloe Grace Moretz's character was the wisest person in the movie, and she's only a preteen. "Just because she likes the same bizarro crap as you doesn't mean she's your soulmate." 💞
I hate that trope in entertainment.
@@macabredanceparty5277 I love that trope. Kids ask questions that we stop pondering long ago. It’s not unrealistic because they have not been influenced by society/media as long (kind of funny how young people still love Friends). They may not be wise, but they’re often closer to reality because they know little about anything else. Like the child in The King’s New Clothes story.
@@macabredanceparty5277 Kids with the right parenting and exposed to knowledge are often the least naïve and more aware of how the world works.
@@mhawang8204 Wow. Excellent interpretation. [+]
Gives credence to the saying "Out of the mouths of babes"
One thing I’ve noticed about this movie is when Summer is breaking up with Tom, she says “all we ever do is fight” and seems generally shocked when he doesn’t agree. Then when we see the relationship through Tom’s eyes, we never see much fighting. That’s how you know how unreliable a narrator he really is. He literally blocked it all out, didn’t even “see” the fights.
Woah, never noticed it. The "unreliable narrator" part reminded me of the novel "The sense of an ending". Phenomenal book.
It’s scary how he immediately starts a fight, by screaming at her, saying they don’t fight. It makes it seem like not only do they fight, he frequently abuses her emotionally and mentally. Poor Summer :(
@@DeathnoteBB You are reading too much into it. Stop calling everything abuse.
Didn't his unbelievably wise younger sister tell him that he only remembered the good times?
@@gaila.9852 I dunno man. You gotta keep an eye out for red flags like that. Its not 'calling it everything abuse' Its just keeping an eye out for that shit. Stop overdramatizing everything.
That part when Summer tells Tom “something she’s never told anyone before” I love how the narrator drowns out what she’s saying, and Tom is clearly not paying attention to what she’s saying, either.
He was only thinking "Oh, I am special, I'm not just anyone" instead of "Wow, I'm glad she trusts me enough to tell me this"
Z Anime Exactly. It was a great way of conveying how self-centered he was about Summer, as if she only existed to be the girl of his dreams, rather than him seeing Summer as an actual human being with her own life and feelings and issues.
I think a lot of guys do this. If the conversation isn't about them or what they like, they just doze off. Tom does not love Summer or he'd pay more attention to what she's saying.
Yes! She actually does make an effort to be close to him but he does not care. He doesn't listen to her and doesn't respect her. And that is shown many times. And perhaps this is why Summer does fall in love with someone eventually, perhaps that person actually listens to her.
@@brendakerber7923 Yep, the guy took an interest in her interest and she realized she could talk to him and he would listen. Books are always the way to go haha.
A subtle clue to how Tom doesn't really know Summer as a person: When he's describing his favourite things about her, he lists superficial aspects, such as her smile and hair, but NOTHING about what makes her tick. This film is insanely clever! 😍♥️
The difference between actually being in love with someone and thinking you're in love.
This!!!! That’s always been a red flag for me!!
And when he was angry at her he said he hated those same things, like her 'cockroach-shaped birthmark', etc
Not sure if "clever" is the right word. As mentioned, the creator drew from his own experience and perhaps wasn't even aware of Tom's flawed perspective.
@@EdgarRoock I'm pretty sure after many drafts the screenwriter was aware of Tom's flawed perspective.
one thing i found interesting was at the end and summer mentioned that she was reading dorian grey when a man approached her and asked her about it and now he’s her husband. i was shocked that summer read a classic like that, tom had never mentioned she had an interest in books because it didn’t align with his own interests. he likes movies and music, and so we only ever saw summer enjoying movies and music. i think that scene goes to show how tom never really loved summer as her own person, but as a projection of his own fantasies and desires and interests. i think the thing summer was never sure about with tom is how she likely felt so unseen by him-even when she was opening up to him at the moment she said “i’ve never told anybody that before,” she’s blurred out and spoken over by the narrator and tom doesn’t seem to be listening to her but rather thinking to himself. the difference between tom and the man she ended up marrying, is that her husband wanted to know more about summer whereas tom wanted the validation that being with her brought him-he wanted the feeling she gave him.
yep, he never really saw her. he saw the very specific things they had in common and based his interest in her on that. if someone asked 2 personal things about her he would have a nervous breakdown.
That makes so much sense too given the movie paints her as always being like an object of desire (trophy girl)….thus why she’s apprehensive to be with someone because they don’t see her as a person but as a beacon of their own personal success by ‘obtaining’ her.
I just saw the movie and I noticed that Summer actually was reading a book in one scene, while sitting in a Cafe with Tom. He asked her if she wants to go to the movies or sit at her place. She was disconnected, but agreed to watch the movie.
When she said in the end that she married the guy who asked her about the book she was reading, it made more sense, that they included that detail.
Tom offered her only two options that he liked and he didn't even notice that she might not be in the right mood to invite him over to her place. He aslo didn't ask her if there's something she would like to do instead. He apparently also never asked her about the book she was reading around him and never asked her about her interests at all, even though he noticed a few strange things around her house, when she invited him in for the first time. He could have asked her about the origami tree that he was looking at, or about any other piece of art or random object, like the framed keyes or dolls or that hat and apple arrangement or the butterfly on the top of a booktower, but he only asked her about her her dreams and past relationships.
Well said. Very observant to notice that detail about the book. Never noticed it. But it all makes sense now. This is definitely a story about a boy. And it’s also not a love story, but a story about love if that makes sense.
yes exactly. that same moment struck me as well too. not only does the narrator drown her out but all he could say to her after she opened up to him was "I guess I'm not just anybody," and he made it about himself.
Tom wasn’t in love with Summer, he was in love with the idea of her, as in the “image” he created of her in his head. So even when she kept saying that she wasn’t looking for anything serious, he just didn’t listen because it didn’t match with his idea of her. But I think Summer could have discussed the relationship early on to see what was really in Tom’s mind and just called it off since she didn’t feel the same way.
So basically neither of them are heroes or villains, they are both just humans😂
Precisely, you've hit the nail perfectly on the head! 👏🏾 Tom's rebound date later calls him out on Summer being upfront about not wanting a serious relationship, yet continuing to obsess over her months after they'd broken up. It's only after he lets her, and his fictionalised image of her, go, that he's able to move on with his life. ♥️
Precisely. She kinda did act like she was in a relationship, even though she said she does not want one, so they are both at fault here. He did not listen and he kept seeing his own vision of her, she did not act on what she said and in a way lead him on.
Yes, they are humans. Humans who really should have communicated and listened better.
@@vuklozo but also, we only have a glimpse of Tom's perspective. His sister points out "I think you should look again". So, maybe, we are let to believe that she was acting in a relationship way, when in fact she might be having a different set of actions, that Tom decided to "forget" because it didn't match with his ideia of this great relationship they were in.
i think a scene that really captures this is one were they are both laying on the bed and talking. one moment summer says “i’ve never told anyone that before” but what she said is tuned out, as the camera zooms in tom’s face. he didn’t care about what she was actually saying, he cared about what that represented. just like with his relationship with summer, he wasn’t in love with her but he was in love with what she represented
I love how at least once a year, Joseph Gordan-Levitt says ''Guys, Tom's not the victim here please stop!' It really something when the star has to keep telling people to not idolise his character.
Totally, it's probably easy to root for Tom, since he's the protagonist, and the story is from his perspective. But his actions are definitely creepy, and once he lets his "idea" of Summer go, he can move on.
Well he kindda is, but a victim of himself and his expectation. There's nothing wrong in falling in love with someone. What's wrong is guilt tripping that person into something they don't want. I can see myself in part of him in that I want to meet the right girl, fall in love and have a family and grow old. What I don't see myself in him his that I would never force myself physically or emotionally into anyone whatsoever to a point i can look distant and unfriendly. That in turn make developping bonds with others impossible. I'm so scared of being that guy I'm doing a 180 that ensure not only i'll never do that, but i can't get close to people to even get a healthy relationship with them.
Shit that got real real quick, i think i need therapy.
Yes! I love that he does that
@@TheMajorStranger I’m really glad you at least have the wherewithal to understand that (though it seems a bit detrimental 😅). I can’t tell you how exhausting it is to experience or even hear about men essentially preying on you or your friends and it’s just socially accepted for whatever dumb reason. Even as a married woman I still have to deal with this nonsense. You’ll figure it out!
They are both the bad guys, Summer for illuding him and Tom for over-idealizing
One of the things that I've noticed as I've gotten older, is that whilst Summer specifically stated she didn't want a boyfriend, yet acted like a girlfriend, and then coldly broke it off with him, ALL of this could be how he's perceived Summer. We're seeing her the way he see's her.
Exactly, she didn't want a boyfriend but acted as a girlfriend. Great way to see it.
She wanted a friends with benefits and wanted to have fun (as she stated in the movie). I rewatched the movie last night after not seeing this movie in many years. I noticed right off the bat that Summer just wasn’t feeling Tom at all. Look at her facial expressions when she’s around Tom, she looks sad, unhappy and her smile looks forced. She probably felt as if she HAD to be nice to him because he kept pursuing her. Tom probably triggered her, reminded her of someone she knew, or she probably felt obligated to be nice to him because he was in love with her (which she knew).
@@bay9618 Tom was a moron, Summer was selfish. If someone has told you that they like you and want more with you, but you don't then do you cut them out of your life or take them for a ride till your objectives are met and then discard them like trash?
@@JohnDoe-yg5hf and that’s what make this movie such a good movie. Why do we hurt people who see the “good” in us? Summer was definitely selfish and Tom was hopelessly in love with a woman who didn’t want him.
@@bay9618 Yeah, it's sad but very eye opening too. I hope people take away the right message from the movie.
The basic sum up of this movie: when a woman says no, SHE MEANS NO. The saddest part is all the people that thought she was a bitch for rejecting his advances. Had it been the other way around, they would be calling her 'psycho' for not accepting his rejection.
This!!! You are 💯 right!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
This movie was in the middle of the awakening of so many feminist women! Or this movie was a punch line? who knows...
@@OddChocolate Yup, if no means no, it means no. You can't tell someone no, then agree to date and yes sleep with someone and then claim you said no from the very beginning (which, tbf, I don't think she does, just this video). You can still say no afterwards, but it is a qualified no. It is not unrealistic that Tom would be hurt by it afterwards, and he wouldn't respond to it perfectly, dating and relationships do involve your ego. In a perfect world, we would all accept 'it wasn't to be' straightforwardly, but rejection is always a challenge to your ego and cherished beliefs in some way.
@@OddChocolate Summer is the character that was vilified for like a decade before people really started seeing that Tom wasn't a great person. So it's stupid to use this an example where men take responsibility more than women do.
Tom is literally Ted Mosby, the only difference is that the movie actually points out his flaws and doesn't try to portray him as a saint like how HIMYM portrays Ted.
Ted Mosby is portrayed as the nice guy but is actually the worst. Have you watched The Take's video about his character?
@@onyxlim2473 no but I’m on my way to it! 😂
Exactly!
It’s the same for Ross Gellar from Friends too. A vast majority of his conflict was his inability to see Rachel was a person with agency. Like he spends 99% of their relationship in the show either angry/frustrated that she isn’t acting the way he wants her to act or interfering in anything that seems that can distance herself from his realm of influence. Like the one time he decides he is not going to get in her way is what gets Rachel to go back to him for good. None of his behavior has been really critiqued on the show. Maybe the only moment that comes close was the “We Were On a Break” situation.
@@crownofeunoia1907 exactly. I think Ross and Rachel both fucked up throughout the show. They never really accepted each other, and Ross was in love with the IDEA, of this perfect Rachel he created in his head since forever..
Tom was never in love with Summer, he was in love with how she made him feel. He fetishized and idealized her and refused to see her as a multi-dimensional person with flaws.
he’s all about HIMSELF and still be thinking he’s not like other guys
Isn’t how someone else makes you feel a byproduct of love ? So if you love someone, they would obviously make you feel good without any expectation?
@@nachc6459 he fell in love with HIS idea about her. He didn't look enough closely to see who she really was outside of his veil of fantasy.
@@trejo3336 yup that was his fault Tom is a naive guy I agree, but what about after the bar fight scene, where he clearly lays it all out, that he's not interested in continuing a relationship as anything less than serious, and leaves.... if summer didn't want a serious relationship that should've been the break up point, Over, but no she goes to him, and then there is the train and wedding scenes,
@@trejo3336 "he fell in love with HIS idea about her."
Everyone does that.
I actually think even as a female, I identify with Tom in that I have been guilty of expecting men to live up to some bullshit fantasy in my head, instead of just getting to know who they are. Hmmm...some self reflection is in order 🤔.
Meeee! People say I’m summer at first glance because of my wardrobe and my “ Zooey Deschanel quirkiness”. But at heart I feel like I’m more of a Tom. I’m getting better at it but it’s still a work in progress.
Oh yeah, I'm guilty too. What do u expect growing up with bs love songs and movies and no one teaches u otherwise?
ya the whole romcom genre is a sick emotional fantasy money grab, unless you watch it as a tragic comedy then its fun.
Crazy Ex Girlfriend covers a lot of the same ground from the female side of these romantic expectations if you haven't seen it, you might enjoy it.
Agree with the idea of coming of age. I was also the female version of Tom at times in my twenties, trying to craft the idea of a soulmate around people I barely knew because they liked “the same bizarro shit” as I did. The person whom I ended up marrying is so different than those idealized visions I had when I was younger, yet so much more loving, deep, and real. Maybe some people need to go through those failures to appreciate a true relationship.
Growing up is realizing Tom was not the good guy, but the NICE GUY™️
Totally agree 👍
He isn’t nice
@@jovanym2931 Yeah that's the nature of the term "NICE GUY" as used on the internet. Most of the people who determinedly think of themselves as the nice guys damage their own potential to kindness and empathy. When you've already decided your own nature and role in the world, it's easy to stop trying, even when trying is what counts.
Well said.
Whoa!
I also love the fact that Summer highlighted how she met her husband and how he asked her about what she was reading, indicating that he wanted to get to know her on an intellectual level and wanted to know what her interests were.
This is exactly what this movie is about. She was never loved by Tom but was just fantasized.
This is a fantastic observation and "solves" the problem of Summer's lack of belief in love in one small gesture that gets drowned out by the grand romantic gestures that many come to expect.
I'm sure many found that scene sad, uncomfortable, and heartbreaking, but in retrospect it's kind of hilarious that all it took was, "Heyyy watcha reading!"
Such a perfect meeting story considering Summer met Tom by commenting on his music taste and he just stands there drooling instead of asking, "What's your favorite song of theirs?" or quite literally anything about herself.
Or….that was his favorite pick up line every time he ran into an attractive woman reading a book.
@@WideTier lmao these hoes wanna believe in a fantasy bro .. this movie isn't about villians or heros its about hypergamy but these hoes think its about progressing to a better relationship... they shouldve showed all the scenes of Summer getting railled in the backseat after the breakup... instead they show her at the ending 'getting married' to make these hoes believe in a fairytale bro
also shows someone taking the initiative with her rather than the other way around (she spoke to Tom first in the elevator and initiated the kiss as well)
Tom's utter lack of curiosity about who Summer is as a person is really sad. When Summer opens up about a really deep fear she has, he doesn't really even seem interested in why that would be a fear for her, but rather just that her opening up to him means he's "in." When he asks her about the guy she gets married to, the story she tells him is about a guy asking a few questions about a book she was reading - something Tom probably would never even think to bother about. He doesn't really see her as a person with motivations and vulnerabilities. Is it any wonder her awful dreams are about being alone? The opening of the movie talks about what a dreamboat she is, but only implies what a life being put on a pedestal would do to someone after awhile.
Why ask her questions? Tom is the main character and she is just in a supporting role in his mind.
Do you realize that almost all men who ask a few questions about a book aren't actually interested in that book at all? They are trying to sneak in by pretending interest in what she is reading. So actually Tom is way more honest because he simply doesn't care to pretend he is interested in what she is reading
@@martifrey3357 how does that make it any better?
@@martifrey3357 You sound like a jerk lmao
Thank you for this, now I know why she picked that person who asked about Dorian Gray. It wasn't just her waking up and knowing something has changed. It was because she felt seen by this man, rather than be put on a pedestal.
When he says, "You're not the only one who gets a say in this...I say we're in a relationship," it was REALLY creepy.
That's what a stalker would say.
Yes, a relationship must be consensual always. I felt his impotence on that scene, but is not something that should be consider ok.
My shitty high-school boyfriend said that to me everytime I had the courage to end things, and because I was young and didn't know better, I let my "Tom" manipulate my young mind for 5 years. I hated him, and yet i was still stuck with him because he was a relentless and manipulative version of Tom from 500 seconds agh
@@user-ep6cy1sl8n at least you're out of that hell hole now...it's insane how fucked up and manipulative some people are
It's kinda true. You can't just carry on without checking in with the other person. That's inconsiderate to the point of being hurtful. But yeah, soon as someone's out it's effectively over and there's nothing you can do.
Clingy boy meets emotionally unavailable girl. Both have a yearning for intimacy and authentic human connection. Problem is one can't see the other beyond his fantasies, as a real and flawed human being. While the other wants the free demo, but isn't willing to pay for the monthly pro subscription.
This is the best summary actually
I love how it's like reversed stereotype
Thank you for being a voice of reason in the comments. It’s mainly just a fuck tom party in here 🤣
They are both pretty damn awful
@@ASSCOCK31 Well women are upset.
I can always tell if I’ll vibe with someone based on their interpretation of the ending and it’s characters.
anything short of "both where dumb af" is a red flag.
@@erpherp4047 I rewatched the movie just now and I greatly sympathized with both of them. More so Summer though as even though she fucked up repeatedly with Tom by leading him on for so long (because she did, it should've been discussed sooner, their status even with her saying "I don't want a relationship" yet it was talked about eventually which is why she cut him off) she still really enjoyed his company. Tom ignored all the red flags that his loved ones were pointing out to him because he had so much hope built upon her reciprocating in this fantasy world he ended up creating due to how he grew up and was conditioned, which allows me to sympathize with him as well.
Hahaha 🤣. So you’re only cool with being in echo chambers of confirmation biases? Ok 👍 [+]
@@elplebeuchiha1996 Damn bro you replying to everyone, huh?
Meh..
I think they picked an actor that made Tom too likeable in an era where the audience was trained to root for the main character. I was young when I watched it, so I felt bad for Tom. I thought it was a story about having to get your heart broken before finding the one. I'm so glad I learned more about this film over the last few years and am excited to watch it again with this knowledge.
That’s what the actor said too. He explained back then in an interview when the movie came out that his character was actually a terrible person.
I think his likeability was important to the character, shaded everything in good guy colored glasses, which means you have to actually be paying attention to realize how wrong he was.
@@RagnarokMic but the problem is that a lot of people viewing the movie aren’t paying attention. This makes people lose the message.
I know for me, when I first saw the movie, I was going through a breakup, so I wholeheartedly felt bad for Tom and hated Summer. But upon later viewings, once I was over my breakup, I realized that he was a jerk who was entitled and I realized that I had indeed dealt with men like that through out my life time. So, having perspective really makes a difference.
@@shelfraawoods1785 o
If you are a person like Summer, you can be proud to be a jerk too
15 year old me: Summer was a manipulative bitch!
27 year old me now: These two characters are emotionally fucked up.
🤣🤣
i don't think Summer was emotionally fucked up. she was very clear with what she wanted from the beginning until the end. she never wanted anything serious with Tom. He was delusional and disregarded all that she was saying to fit his narrative and fantasies. if anyone's delusional, i think it's just Tom.
Sorry to disagree with this, Summer is not emotionally fucked up, she's being practical. Tom is delusional. He fantasize love .
Summer feels distant. In a way, abit unempathetic and disconnected with tom in a similar way of how tom is disconnected with her. she may have said the things. But she ignored his illusion. It felt like she was 'playing' with him not so much because she consciously did, but because she didn't seem in touch with him on a human level, even though spending alot of time together. I'm not saying it's her 'fault', she didn't con him. But she is in abit of detachment. Her 'cynical' nature is basically emotional detachment. So I agree with this comment.
@@barnashoded This is it right here. It doesn’t get more simple than this. But I will take it a step further and blame her for not having the ability to recognize the delusion this man had for her and just straight up tell him, “I just want to fuck.”
Her acting is really good as Summer because you can see the exact second she lobs him a chance to connect with her and he fails. The micro expressions of disappointment are amazing. You can see the exact moment she shuts down on him.
I agree!!!! So many opportunities to be her hero, and he fails over and over. That's why she didn't chose him. Will you share which moments stood out for you?
Are y'all talking about the bar scene where he punches the guy ?
which scenes are you talking about in this? i just rewatched it
@@pong6377 after the bar scene didn't tom makes it clear that he wants something serious, and leaves? And then summer goes to him, if she really didn't wanted anything serious that should've been the end..
@@uveshkhan3901 its almost like human emotions are complicated or something and she was selfish in the moment while he was selfish over 500 days
I honestly never saw the ending as "happy," but a repeat of the cycle. She's a "season," as noted in this video and all he knows about her is she's an architect, meaning she may like the same bizarre-o things he does, but he's already ascribing fate to it and moving to infatuation. He didn't grow at all in my opinion. Summer did. We feel for Tom, cause we've all been there, but I never saw Summer as the villian.
Same. When I saw the ending and she said her name was Autumn, my immediate reaction was "This dude learned nothing and here he goes again." Not "oh he learned something".
This dude to me, will be forever alone because he's just not gonna change.
Yeah me too I was like oh here we go again he ain't learned a thing. They even throw the counter on the screen like 'we had 500 days of summer let's see how many days of autumn! '
@Akshay 004 They literally reset the count at the end of the movie. He’s stuck in the same cycle. Maybe he’s become more motivated in his professional life, but he’s still stunted romantically. He just pushed the boulder all the way up the hill and smiled when it rolled back down for him to repeat the cycle.
Funny I saw it a bit differently. I saw it as Tom finally moving on from Summer. The "conversation" on the bench represented Tom coming to terms with the reality of the situation of his relationship with Summer, however painful it may be. Autumn represents the next season in his life, a new beginning. We don't know exactly where it will end, but we do know that he has officially moved on from Summer. Hope springs eternal. I never saw Summer as a villain either by the way.
@@sampa2nyc Oh, I actually did for a long time. Granted I was like twelve years old when I saw it the first time, but as an adult I just see two flawed people. (Aka “literal human beings.”) He did finally seem to be moving on, but I’d argue that was happening the whole time he was changing his life post-breakup. Why does his “summer” only end when he meets a new woman? Where are the days of Tom, you know? I’d argue he needs at least a few of them before he’s ready to share his life with someone
I always interpreted the ending (especially as he looks directly into the camera) not as a hint that he was “right” or that Autumn may be his “dream girl”, but that he’s not learned his lesson. I saw it as a “Oh, here we go again” ending...The cycle repeats.
woah I just realized this
Me too! Even naming the girl Autumn kind of implies there will be another 500 days of Autumn, ending again in heartbreak because he hasn’t grown in that area of his life. But it’s also hopeful in a very human way. It’s like how we all wake up every day and have dreams and goals, despite knowing we’re doomed to die the second we are born and that doing all of this is really for nothing, but sometimes we have fun 🤷🏻♀️
I took it as a metaphor that girls can be like seasons in your life, particularly at a period of time in your life. Not literal of the name Summer or autumn but different time periods in your life that you share something special with a girl. And when he found out her name was summer, he was shook and understood. If that makes sense.
I disagree. Autumn didn't look like Summer, and Autumn is not Summer. The worst was if it was a rebound relationship.
But it was necessary and important that he move on from Summer to somebody else.
@@sieteocho exactly. I don't think the cycle would repeat because he kinda has something to fall back on (Architecture) when it doesn't work out. Unlike before with summer, where he depended his happiness on.
You know, it would be really interesting to see "500 Days of Summer" from Summer's perspective.
They should do it because in the end everyone’s interpretation will remain the same.
Yes want that because I'm like summer
500 days of angsty cringe-guy :D
They should definitely do it!!! That intrigues me a lot! I mean, I want to know what really happened and why she lost interest in him. Why she never felt secure about being with him??
I want to empathize with her, too.
Indeed, and it would also be interesting to see "Shirley Valentine" from Joe's.
Here's what Tom should have done.
Tom - "Summer, I feel strongly about you. About us. I'd like to give this a shot. I want us to be in a relationship."
Summer - "Gee! Tom, I don't know. I do like you a lot and I like spending time with you. But I am not ready for a relationship."
Tom - "Are you sure? Is that what you really want?"
Summer - "I don't know Tom. I don't think it's anything serious between us."
Tom - "Okay. Fine. I guess then we should end this. Cause, clearly, we both have different expectations and we'll just hurt each other by not living up to what the other wants in this."
Summer - "Maybe you are right. Thanks for understanding."
Tom - "Goodbye Summer. I wish you all the best. Thank you for all the good memories."
Self-respect? Intact. Respect for other person's boundaries and emotions? Intact. Painful? A lot. But you'll walk away a wiser man.
Feels like two robots talking
Movie ends in 5 minutes
At least we would have get to see more days of Autumn.
@@pablodokken Autumn was way hotter.
@@lime4 welcome to the future 😂
remember kids, relationship compatibility is NOT about whether you can talk about some obscure subject for half an hour
its about whether you can have an argument about something and resolve it without childish/negative behaviour like name calling or gaslighting
if you are afraid of getting into an argument with your partner, aka communicate, you are NOT in a healthy relationship
Aye aye Captain Pikachu!
This is important
Because more people want to identify with being the one who was mislead and hurt than admit that maybe it's not always meant to be.
Thats the thing tho, he was never ever mislead. By himself maybe, but not by Summer.
Summer was clear from day one. Tom just never listened to what she was saying.
@@hungergamesgeek3198 Her actions did sometimes conflict with her statements though. She runs around Ikea with him, acts as a psuedo-girlfriend throughout much of the film and then expects Tom not to get attached even when she is doing everything to make him attached to her. Not to mention she dances with him at a wedding and again acts like a girlfriend when she is in another relationship. She's not this naiive. I totally sympathize with Summer too though. She did state that she didn't want a relationship, but at some point she was very well aware that Tom was looking at it as something else and she didn't take her foot off the gas. She kind of did what she wanted and liked the attention Tom gave her while blocking out the fact she knew Tom wanted more. And I'm saying this while also agreeing that Tom wrongly idealized Summer. I think both can be true.
@@Ray03595 facts
Or, because she's a woman, and is supposed to want a relationship. So by staying, she's being told that she's aceepting his terms. Never mind if the situation were reversed, the implication would not be the same.
@@Ray03595 Once again, remember we only see the entire story through Tom’s perspective and he’s an unreliable narrator. Everything he likes about Summer becomes everything he hates when he’s mad. The movie shows you that he ignores the signs every time Summer doesn’t fit his romantic views. He doesn’t really know her.
No means no; it doesn’t get more clear than that. If Tom doesn’t like it, he can stop hanging out as friends with benefits, but not expect Summer to return his feelings.
"Just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soul mate."
Rachel Hansen
Preach, my absolute favourite quote in the entire movie, and it's 100% accurate! Chloe Grace Mortez knows all! 🙏💜
@@trinaq I agree.
I feel like this video needs a male perspective, because this painfully accurately reflects the immature mindset so many of us start off with. As my female friend put it "Guys think they're in love with me just because I'm a girl you can smoke weed with and have an interesting conversation".
I legit just watched this yesterday (going through a breakup, I’m at the stage of it). And I couldn’t help but think we really needed a sequel from Summer’s perspective. What a movie that would have been.
yes!! i would love something like this
Summer probably:
I moved form Michigan to LA in order to start a new life and get myself in order. I wanted to get far away from my broken family, failed relationships and basic jobs without future career prospects. I wanted something more intellectually stimulating with opportunities to grow.
I got an office job as an assitant to the manager of a big cmpany. It's not my dream job, but it's a good start. It pays enough to rent a decent place for myself, so that I can stabilize my life after moving. Maybe I'll be able to save up for college, that would be great. If that job doesn't work out, I'll still have lots of other options out here in this big city.
I'd love to make new friends in this place, it's getting lonely sometimes, I don't have many people to tallk to. I'm doing my best to be friendly and open to talk with anyone I meet, but I don't want to bother other people too much either. I still have some trust issues and heartbreak to heal from, my last breakup was a total disaster, I lost myself completely in that previous relationship and I feel like I don't even know who I am as a person. That's far too much baggage to bring into a new relationship, so I don't want to start anything romantic until I give myself a chance to be my own person for a while. I don't want to lead anyone on, so I'll be clear and upfront about my priorities.
There's this guy at work, he seems to be staring at me sometimes, but when I initiated a chat in the elevator one time, he seemed disinterested, I'm not sure what his deal is. He's awkward but also kind of cute and he has a good taste for music, I wonder if we could be friends. I'm glad he didn't hit on me, like that other guy who was disrespectful, so I had to tell him off, he got upset and now I have to avoid him at all times to not bring any more drama into my new job. Thankfully most of my coworkers are women, but sadly most of them are much older, so the options for closer friendships are limited.
I was standing by myself at the office party, not sure what to do, since I don't know anyone yet, and the elevator guy saved me from feeling completely out of place at the moment. He offered me a drink and said his name was Tom.
Finally there was an opportunity to socialise at the karaoke party. I think I was able to make friends, Tom turned out to be a guy with a sense of humor. His friend was very talkative but also very drunk, he asked me about love, so I had an opportunity to say that I'm currently not looking for love, to make it clear that I only want friends in my life right now, he called me a dude, so I guess I'm safe. I said I don't even believe in love, but Tom disagreed with my opinion, even though he didn't make any counter claim.
I think I really like Tom. I did something unbelievably stupid, I kissed him at work. I'm so ashamed of myself. Not only did I ruin the proffesional atmosphere at work for myself, I also broke my personal standard and may have given him the wrong idea, I don't want to loose a friend or a job like that. I'll probably have to look for a new job and clear things up with Tom ASAP. I can't be the one to start a romance now, this is so wrong.
Tom said he's ok with being just friends and keeping things casual.We have a great time together and goof around a lot. I have feelings for him, but our conversations don't get past a certain point, he doesn't ask much about my life, it might be for the better.
We got into bed with eachother. I asked Tom again if he's ok with me not wanting a serious relationship, he said he wants to keep things casual too. He never asks questions or puts any pressure on me, he doesn't even initiate any further steps, he doesn't back off or state his own goals, so I guess he's comfortable with the speed I am moving forward with him. It's nice to have someone to cuddle and sleep with, without being afraid of a potential ugly breakup, just two adults who really like eachother and want to keep eachother warm at night. No strings attached.
I wish I could open up more, or get somewhere with Tom, but I don't think I can. I worry he has some expectations, that I won't be able to meet, but doesn't say anything, so I'm not sure if that's really the case. Maybe it's just my anxiety. I invited him over to my place, I was very open with him, maybe too open. I don't invite people over to my place, it's far too personal, there's a mess of art and books and all things that are meaningful and sacred to me, yet I brought him there to see all that about me. He didn't ask questions or judge my mess. We were talking about our dreams and fears and I told him about how lonely I feel sometimes. I told him so much, things I haven't told anybody else in my life, he was looking at me for the whole time, but I'm not sure he listened. He didn't talk much about himself when I asked him and he didn't ask much. I guess it was too late for deep conversations, he must have been tired...
Let's be real, if the main character didn't look like JGL we would call him a creep and never want to step 5 metres in his bubble.
even JGL made me feel like he is a creep as Tom specially when he lashes at Summer.
I dont understand people finding JGL that atractive to beguin with
@@alejandrocervantes3624 I always say he could’ve done a face swap with heath ledger and nobody would ever notice
@@alejandrocervantes3624 nah bruh that dude is handsome asf but each to their own
@@alejandrocervantes3624 He got a likable aura but I wouldn't put him into the Attractive category.
The line that stuck out to me in this movie is “remember that thing I wasn’t sure about with you. I’m sure about with him.” I use it to remind myself at times that it’s important how the other person sees me. Great movie. I didn’t see her as the villain. I saw Tom as what happens when you only see things how you want to see them and not how they are you.
I also think that it overlooks a critical part of the narrative: Tom DID actually warm summer up to the idea of a relationship. But he just wasn’t the one.
Love this
Both were at fault. Tom for not seeing Summer as a human being but just as a fantasy and Summer for leading Tom on with dates and sex even though she knew she didn't feel as he did. They both see each other as a reinforcement of their own worldviews.
Exactly!
How did she lead him on? She literally told him on the first date that she didn't want anything serious and was very obvious about not being super into a relationship
@@jan-mm1kb she knew he wanted a relationship and how much the lack of commitment/label bothered him. But she never set boundaries or cut the relationship off and strung him along with her indecisiveness about him
+
@@jan-mm1kb i agree. Tom is just another emo man who cries when he doesn't get his way. Summer set the boundaries very clearly. Never a serious relationship. And I think summer, autumn these are phases of life. Some people grow with phases of life, like Summer and even Autumn who denied him at first. But people like Tom are so self-absorbed that they cannot see anything beyond their views.
A lot of people canonize Tom because they relate to their own "fantasy" of someone. When I was in college, I used to think Summer was evill too since a friend was going through what Tom was going through. Of course I felt for my friend.
I'm now 29 and I believe that my friend put himself in that position and we were wrong to think the girl was evil. She clearly said she didn't want to be in a relationship but my friend pushed boundaries in hopes that she might change her mind. Realization: a person is not evil for not reciprocating romantic feelings when they communicated otherwise.
Sure, they may act flirty but isn't that on us for ignoring the big ass red flag?
Both were selfish. Both made mistakes. Neither is a villain or a hero in my book. But, whatever. Everyone has their own interpretation. Mines is that we must respect and accept whatever the desires of others are, and focus only to move towards our desires as best we can. X.X
@@kaineshigaraki5253 how were they both selfish
People also canonize Tom because a happy ending with Summer would have been a fairytale: love wins all and if you try hard enough you can always get what you want. So blaming Summer is due to resentment against all those who they see as reason for themselves not having fairy-tale stories.
@@papasscooperiaworker3649 Because she didn't check in with him - even if it costs her a fun fling. She shouldn't have to say it constantly or avoid being flirty, but they "hung out" for a year. In that year one quick convo maybe a couple months in, reiterating what she said at the onset is not too much to ask. That and she didn't tell him she was seriously dating someone and invited him to her engagement party without giving him a heads up. Again, she says she wants a friendship but that's not a very friendly thing to do.
I would say the opposite- I find Tom hard to watch because I know I used to have that kind of mindset. I was never the hopeless romantic type, but falling for a pretty girl based on pretty superficial reasons, and then feeling heartbroken that she wasn't falling into my arms...
When you've been both Summer and Tom in your two only relationships and consider this movie both as a relief and a punch right into your face.
literally me
Seriously. I’ve been both characters at different times in my life. When I first saw this film though I was a ‘summer’ so I kind of understood her more at the time
when a woman falls in love with a playboy and gets her heart broken, she's at fault for falling into his charms and not guarding her heart. when a man falls in love with a woman who has stated from the very beginning that she doesn't want to be in a serious relationship, its still her fault because she couldn't change her mind and sympathize with the guy. it's always the woman. it's like their partners don't have a mind of their own.
That's not true. Whether female or male, it's wrong to tell someone you don't want a relationship but lead them on and do all things a couple would do in a relationship. I made my share fare of selfish acts in the past and used this excuse in the past so when I need to dump them a girl out of my life after my fun, I can easily do so explaining that I told them from the beginning I never wanted a relationship. Girls has used this before on me in the past as well. This is all when I was younger though and now I'm in 30s, older and have learned to be honest, communicate about true intentions and not leading someone on. No more games.
The Take has a habit of assuming that any male character in a movie is bad and any female character is good. In reality, it is very common to hear playboys being criticized for leading women on. It is also very common to hear people say that that a man was pressuring a woman into a relationship. It seems like most of the time, people are more willing to give women the benefit of the doubt when there is relationship issues and make negative assumptions about the men. I wish we as a culture could get away from that.
It's not like that, it's literally the other way around
if a woman rejects a man:
"it was his right"
"he deserves better" (this if the guy is short, ugly, fat etc)
"be MAN and accept it"
If a man rejects a woman:
"she loved you"
"But if she's beautiful, how are you going to reject her?"
you are a monster, she had feelings "
I think this comes from an endless number of mechanisms that are relationships
and also the "the man proposes the woman disposes"
or the sentimental woman and the cold and insensitive man
@The Antagonist becauseeee....... potato?
She stated that from the start that's correct, but after the bar fight scene tom makes it clear that he doesn't want to continue it unless it's serious and leaves, and summer goes to him
Summer told Tom SEVERAL times she wasn’t interested in a relationship but he kept insisting, until her last no angered him. In real life, he would have had his face pepper spayed.
Tom only wanted to see what he wanted to, he never listened to her.
Unfortunately, real life women are trained to accept this sort of boundary violation as a fact of life, so you're wrong. Even though you should be right.
I've had to stop hanging out with some of my male friends in the past for acting like this. I've only seen 500 Days of Summer once, and that's because I've never liked his character.
I...wouldn't feel too confident of that? Men get away with this kind of behavior all of the time, and it's important that we recognize that in real life.
@@TheCrayonMaster I had a similar experience. I saw him as a friend and kept rejecting him the few times he asked me out over the years. Then he started treating me horribly when I started dating someone. I just terminated the friendship. He didn’t see where he was wrong either and I wouldn’t be surprised if he still thinks that today, 8 years later.
Before I started dating, I related with Tom. But then after I started dating and rewatched the movie, I relate a lot more to Summer.
Same.I guess every women(actually everyone,but I doubt all men face those kind of women with such an audacity to act like Tom in front of them.)(this includes LGBTI+ relationships as well) face a man like Tom.I also used to think like Tom for some of my crushes,but never thought to actually impose them my fantasies in real life.And yet,I knew so many men who acted like Tom to me till I finally get enough of their bullshits.
That is kinda the point of this movie. It states it isn't a romance, and even the Take keeps framing it as a romance when it clearly is a coming of age movie. Tom doesn't has any experience either, and has a lot of misconceptions about romance. Summer was a lesson to him, and at the end, he grew up. However, our first proper relationship often isn't our last either. So then he met Autumn, as a sign he was ready to move onto his next lesson in romance.
@@inferiorinferno8859 don’t you think that it objectifies the women he dates to see them solely as lessons and not real people?
Back in 2009, I saw this in theaters with my now-ex and I remember feeling really weird and guilty afterwards because I saw some part of myself in Summer. My boyfriend absolutely hated her and was totally Team Tom. He thought I loved the movie and even bought me a DVD of it at some point, but I don't think I ever watched it again because it made me uncomfortable. Fast forward to 2016, and we've gone through a terrible split in which he painted himself the victim. I rewatched the movie in my new apartment and it fucking blew me away. I had been Summer and my ex had totally Tom'd me, and I'd spent all those years in his eyes as the manic pixie dream girl fantasy that never managed to live up to his 2-dimensional expectations. This movie has so much more meaning to me now, ironically, than when he thought I loved it because of zoey and retro hipster aesthetics.
Realistically, both Tom and Summer did each other wrong. Summer kept leading him on despite knowing Tom wanted a relationship. And even after she broke it off, she went back to him to have sex.
@@Worldgonemad Holy fuck, people keep saying Summer was leading him on, she says _twice_ in the movie she doesn’t want a serious relationship.
@@DeathnoteBB dude it isn't all black & white, they obviously both made mistakes. summer said she didn't want a serious relationship, but she also went back to him after he made it clear he only wanted to continue if they could be serious. she was giving mixed signals because she didn't know what she wanted. they both fucked up & were imperfect & that's what makes it a good movie
@@h00liaa Except we see in the reality vs expectations scene that he imagines _a lot_ of the supposed romance. I admit I couldn’t watch the whole movie cause it just kept upsetting me but from what I know Summer is the victim here.
@@DeathnoteBB tom doing self-centered & delusional things doesn't have anything to do with summer though? judging from your comments i don't think you've had a lot of experience with relationships, because they're almost never as simplistic as u seem to think. with the exception of full-on abusive relationships, most "normal" relationships like tom & summer's are much more complex. there is no single victim. both of them did wrong, & by putting all the blame on tom you're totally misinterpreting the movie :D
I really loved this movie. The whole expectation vs reality is one of the most heart breaking things ever. As someone who cluelessly tends to fall for this romanticism himself I really appreciate this film as a good slap in the face back to reality
Same. My family had me watch this movie when I was obsessing over a guy without actually getting to know him. And it helped a lot
I agree, that's one of my favourite movie scenes of all time
That why I love this move this movie is the big slap to the people who think what they see in rom com movie is true love blah.....I really love the expection vs reality part
Mostly many girls are like tom
I think he DOES reviews his own behaviour when he changes, before meeting Autum. When he met Summer, he was unhappy; he worked at something he did not like, he did not do anything for himself, he was superficial and actually a very common man. After he broke his own expectations and got sad, he forced himself to seek for hapiness elsewhere, because he tought he could find it with love, with Summer. Once he realised no one can give you hapiness but you and your actions, he chose to study what he loved, left his comfy job and searched for a new one that really got him interested at least. That's growing and changing. He understood that he had to be the one that makes him happy, and that no one would bring that love to him if he didn't had it first.
Once he got passed those obstacules, he found Autum, a women who is strong, independent and beautiful as Summer was, but now he is prepared to play it in a more mature way, because he has learned. That's why he doesn't create a lot of thoughts when meeting her; he actually doubts about asking her out, and I think it's because he doesn't feel completely ready to do it.
Also, I think it's a beautiful detail the fact that their names are "summer" and "autum", because its underlined that there will be a "winter" and a "spring", pointing at the fact that there's no "The One", but a series of people we met and love, and then go because nothing lives forever, but that doesn't mean its not worth it or amazing :)
❤❤❤❤❤
Finally......someone in the comments section that actually understands the ending and doesn't put their own skewered perceptions onto the ending of the film.
@@andrewhastie1641 I don't really buy that narrative, though. Or maybe I'm just actively choosing an optimistic interpretation over a dark one, because that's what I need to hear and to see. A man can never escape himself, but he can change for the better, for there is no saint without a past. Tom has put in the work to make himself a better person; he has moved on from Summer, so I have every reason to believe that even if this relationship with Autumn doesn't work out either, Tom won't fall into the same mistake twice. I'm conscious that this is just an active decision on my part and that has nothing to do with yours being true or false, so to each their own. I guess that we humans just need to keep believing in the power of the metamorphosis.
and he's, for the first time, make the move and tell to her. He never asks summer out.
And the color pattern reflect this vision: is a girl in the world that he lives. Summer is always in blue and he's in brown. We didn't know what will be, but is a NEW SEASON. 😊
"It's actually all Tom's fault for projecting and not listening!" has become such an outsized interpretation of the film, I think as a way of countering the strawman "Summer is such a bitch!" interpretation, which most assume is the default interpretation and thus feel obligated to correct. JGL himself does this.
In reality I think there is more to unpack. Part of the problem is that a lot of the analysis out there indulges in a kind of ugly feminist vs anti-feminist debate and essentially forces you to choose a side, i.e. you must hate Tom or you must hate Summer, with the implication that if you find fault with Summer well then you clearly didn't understand the film, and if you relate to Tom then you must not respect women as people. Some analyses get so wrapped up in pointing out Tom's flaws and "nice guy" characteristics that it sometimes feels no one is even ALLOWED to do any critical analysis of Summer's shortcomings, or allowed to find Tom to be a sympathetic character.
I try to steer clear of this trap. It's wholly possible to have a more nuanced take. To me, the story is less about boy vs girl, or egotistical male protagonist vs manic pixie dream girl, and more about simple incompatibility between two people who are just trying to figure things out in the ways that come natural to them -- Tom by falling hard and fast, and Summer by keeping a guy she's not too sure about at arm's length. In the most important scene in the film, when Summer is married and sees Tom in the park, she actually validates Tom’s romantic worldview, but explains to him that she just wasn’t his happily-ever-after person.
I have had the experience of being both "a Tom" and "a Summer" in different romantic relationships in my life, and to me the film really just underscores how human relationships are complex, beautiful, and in most cases, fleeting.
THANK YOU! I was screaming this the entire video(I was actually about to comment this exact thing) the video hits on a lot of points but i really don’t think they understand the movie as a whole(especially the ending)
Best comment ever.
this. I felt a strong female vibe from this. And all the stupid women expert crap. As a girl I hate that crap.
Tom is the reddit nice guy. He doesn't represent real nice guys or good guys. The video comes off so condescending it makes me wonder if the creators are single angry women mad at other women.
Love is meant to be different for everyone. Some are super cute others are awkward and others don't work. There is no this genre is xxxx.
The problem I people like this video ruining the genre and not letting g people just tell stories.
Also you're right. Tom and summer I think rep a lot of relationships. Where one side is madly in love with the concept of love while the other isn't but they feel bad so they try to fall in love.. but sometimes it doesn't work. And that's just love. And life. No one is truly evil
Bu reddit nice guys with the fedora are lol..I met several and they don't know what no means.
@@npcimknot958 yeah, you're totally different from other girls
He wants her to love him in the way he wants to be loved and not in the way she can love him...
@@smartass0124 oh, it is the nice guy 😱😱 hi!
Exactly, Tom just loves the idea of Summer, rather than Summer herself. Part of his growth is letting go of that fabricated image, and starting to see Summer as a real, flawed human. 💖
@@greyLeicester And this one is a unbashful Nice Guy, a rare breed.
Except Summer never loved him
SPOT ON
I remember seeing this in the theatre with my friends. When I told them how much I hated Tom, they gave me the most confused look and they said "Summer was a bitch!". Tom projected his ideals onto her entirely. There's a reason we only see Summer in scenes with Tom, Tom doesn't view Summer as a fleshed out person, she is just a MPDG to him.
Who she is doesn't matter to him, it's how he perceives her in his fantasy.
As she slept with him, they acted as a couple and she came back again and again
@@comparsa1 yup and she told him that's all she wanted. He should have backed out.
@@yourstepmother8109 But then she sleeps with him and they act like boyfriends, of course
@@comparsa1 But didn't she say she wanted a casual relationship
@@comparsa1 yup she sleeps with him. Sleeping with someone does not always equal a relationship. Especially when the person says they don't want one
The reason I like the movie is because it doesn't try to frame things in a good guy/bad guy way as 99% of movies do. Instead, it just tells a story that is simply an unfortunate situation, a mostly unpleasant experience for everyone involved and it's not really anyone's fault. That's mostly what life is.
Nobody was the bad guy. It shows you how relationship are two sided and although you feel a certain way, someone else might not.
It doesn’t show that relationships are two sided though, it only shows Tom’s side
did you watch the entire video? they literally show Joseph Gordon-Levitt retweeting, with approval, a photo saying his character is the villain
never mind the interviews he and the director both gave where they say hes the bad guy that they also show in the video
Tom was absolutely the bad guy. Not for having feelings for Summer, he couldn’t control that, but for how he acted as a result of them, which he absolutely could control.
@@jamesmorriscreations Look, we all have different points of view
people no longer seem to shield the truth ... they just want to be right at all costs
I'm not saying Summer is to blame, I think they are both to blame. it is my opinion!
We don't actually know how Summer was in the relationship because it is blatantly and entirely from Tom's fantasy and male gaze. The only glimpse of the true Summer and the true relationship we get is when he looks back. Everything else is entirely from his fantasy of how the relationship went. You can't actually say Summer is also to blame because we never see Summer herself in the relationship in those scenes. You'd need 500 Days of Tom and compare the two to find the truth in the middle to declare that.
This is the trick the movie played on purpose. It's use of male gaze is actually my favorite in cinema because it's done with the intent to trick people into ignoring the fact that it's Tom's fantasy of their relationship. That's why the male gaze drops from the movie when he looks back until he meets Autumn.
I've always seen this movie as a reality check for the romantic nice guys of the world. It's a clear message that the nice guy mentality doesn't create long term love because no one is ever going to live up to your high romantic standards.
I love how Summer helps Tom understand more about realistic love and not idolized love. I love how Tom teaches Summer the value of love and that romance is real. They're black and white passing in the street and they create grey together. They each learn something and become better people.
I love 500 Days of Summer. It's kind of a timeless movie because we all have those experiences. As long as there is love, people will be able to relate to this movie.
It's also should be a reality check for all people who idolize men without knowing them. I see this kind of toxicity in the Kpop community, and it makes me shudder.
Wow. What a great interpretation.
Me too this movie teach us about reality and very good life lesson and big slap in the face the rom com girl who are just like tom or some boys are also just like tom
They are not actually romantic. Men convinced themselves that they are romantic, so their words match with their actions, eventually increase the chances of getting fucks.
Tom didn't care about Summer, he just love the idea of a dream girl and the idea she's his dream girl. Also Summer told him she doesn't look for anything serious but he didn't care. However to be fair she should not fuck with a guy she knows is in love with her
Lol yea if tom was smart he would avoided all the intimacy but he enjoyed it hoping for something and ended up even worse
I don't think she knew he was in love with her, she probably thought he was somewhat infatuated with her...
She said in the beginning she doesn't believe in love, she must have assume whatever he feels is not quite as intense as it actually was.
And to be fair, Tom was too much of a coward to actually say that he might have been in love with her.
The reason why people like Tom is mainly because of Joseph Gordon Levitt
He is so likable and relatable
And the story is told through Tom's perspective
💯 agree. If this part were played by a Ron Weasley-type people would just see him as a pathetic loser.
It took me a long time to realize that people don't need to change their minds when you want them to.
They do it in their own time. Summer had a realization about love probably because of what she went through with Tom.
It'd be good for the director to pull a Before Sunset and do 500 days of Tom, 10 years later from Summer's reflective perspective.
Yeah its like that meme that goes like
"Watching a lion eat a deer in a documentary about lions. :)" Vs "Watching a lion eat a deer in a documentary about deers. :("
This is why with infatuation, don’t rush into a relationship
I just watched because someone said “if a guy sees Summer as the villain” so I watched it and... I don’t see anyone as a villain. Tom was just blindly in “love” and Summer made it clear she wants FWB. It just seemed like a coming of age story. Figuring out how the opposite sex works. I don’t think either of them were bad to the other.
This make me think of this line: "You know, he didn't trick me, he just wore me down." -- Penny, Big Bang Theory. Could you do a breakdown of the Penny/Leonard relationship in TBBT?
Yes ! Please, we want an essay of the toxic masculinity in BBT.
Yes, I like leonard, but when it comes to pursuing women, he's 100% nice guy. Thanks god, it takes year for her to accept him.
@@hMusic-tb8hl there's a really good one on that from "pop culture detecitve" 😊
@@FiveOClockTea literally wanted to comment this!
@@FiveOClockTea I loved that one
Walking away from this film thinking Summer is the bad guy has always been on of my top red flags when getting to know somebody.
Hahaha 🤣
Same!
She may not be the bad guy, but her inconsistency is impossible to ignore. You can't spend the whole movie being like "love is not real, relationships never work" only to GET MARRIED in the end. I think that moment made people see Summer as the "villain". I think a lot of people view it as "oh, so you're capable of love, it was just that he was not enough".
What if they've never seen the movie?
@@jddiggy2343 At some point I would make them watch it. Luckily, that's not a difficult problem to fix.
For me, the fact that Tom was so relatable actually helped with the message of the film. Tom, who was clearly in the wrong, was also someone I could relate to deeply and someone who's experience I had shared before. The movie basically showed me how unfair, ineffective, and cruel my "nice guy" routines were.
Hey Issac, I am in the same boat!
Finished reading Dr Glovers, No More Nice Guy,
Investing in myself + Other stuff!
What do you recommend?
He is not a good person , but i don't side with her character either , when you tell someone that you don't want anything serious with them , you don't go and treat them like such a special person by holding their hand , looking them deeply in the eyes , telling them intimate things about you , running back into their arms after a fight , and dating them for a year , what you do matters more than what you say
Exactly. People don't get that. I make sure to distance myself from someone who I know likes me. It's selfish saying, "it's because we're friends, I wanted them in my life still."
Or he could’ve been like ‘ok I can’t do something casual right now’ and have ended it. It’s not all Summer’s responsibility. She told him time and time again, that she didn’t want something serious and he’s an adult too. But since they both didn’t do anything about it, they both kinda suck. :p
@@athena2597 Precisely.
I agree, but we have to keep in mind that we are in Tom's version of reality. Some scenes are shown twice in the movie and we realize things were not as shiny and happy and romantic after all: it was Tom's perspective. So yeah, I wouldn't judge Summer's behavior only based on Tom's version of the facts, which is what is shown on screen.
@@athena2597 i agree
The love he has for her is "fish love".
If people say, they love fish, they don't mean they appreciate fish for what they are. They like how they taste, how they benefit from having it (health wise, energy, whatever)
Most people I know practice fish love and don't know it. They just like what their SO is giving them and don't really even know them
Damn, that's a good metaphor!
Wow. Amazing interpretation.
As a vegan (sorry), I love this
That's on point.. wow.. I'm speechless
*Troy McLure has left the chat*
There is a notion that Summer is also at fault for leading him on when she knows he loves her. Yet, she mentions at the end of the movie that she was with him questioning if she actually felt the same. She wasn't feeling what he wanted her to but she was placing fault on herself for not feeling that way. In my perspective she's not dumb for staying with tom as long as she did, she's being subdued to the archetype that she needs to be.
See I’m honestly scared of being “in love” with people, not for who they are, but for the idea i have of them. I really don’t want to hurt them (and me). Like i’m terrified of my own perception on love and romance
I think if you are approaching romantic interests with a degree of self-awareness you will be fine
Tbh I have this same fear. My past relationships I didn't really look at who they were and realize that it wasn't a healthy relationship but tried to project my ideals of a relationship onto them. Now I'm single and it's the best and I'm kinda afraid of doing the same bullshit all over again.
Wow same same.. but i think a good way to go about it would be just getting to know people for friendships instead of being in the lockout for relationships and then, if you realize you really like this person as a friend, as a human, then love may emerge:)
after a major break up... and a short but strong situationship where I was the summer... I now feel as you say terrified of the idea of being in love, mostly for the fear of hurting other peoples feeling. thats PTSD symptom
Danm your analysis of the "nice guy" is spot on:
"He gives kindness and expects love and sex in return. He feels entitled to it."
"Not so nice anymore when he doesn't get what he thinks he deserves."
"He thinks he is surperior to other men; more honorable towards the woman and therefore more deserving."
Or something along the lines of this.
Yep. This has always been my issue with the "nice guys". I find it to be (sometimes) an act to make up for any insecurities they may have in comparison to "womanizers" such as lack of confidence or looks. Almost like saying "I may not be as forward or good looking, but I am nice...and that makes be better than the other guy". And when their grand gestures don't have the desired effect, it is your loss and they are the victims.
@@dim9753 It's what society tells them they should be.
@@dim9753 good thing i’m lesbian 😜😜😜💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼
I want to see a Nice Guy and a Pick Me Girl get together and see what happens. They're so "not like everyone else" that their "uniqueness" would explode and create a time-space anomaly, where they are exactly like everyone else.
@@alexandra9059 yeah trying to get a “pick me” bitch to go away isn’t easy.
I knew a guy I liked, and he felt the same. Until someone else came along, he said she made him feel "special and different" than how I made him feel, so he ignored me and hung out with her more, until she stated she wasn't interested in a relationship and became unavailable. Then he came right back to me. He continued to do it every time he met a new girl that made him feel different, those relationships went up in flames, and every time he came right back to me and said that I'd never change and understood him well, that I'd never do him the way they did.😐 we're still friends but I don't like him that way anymore. Got kinda tired of it.
I swear this is the movie that everyone hates, but simultaneously loves. You can’t help but to feel convicted by Tom’s demeanour every time you watch this.
Yup. Convicted on either way you see it. [+]
convicted?
what do you mean by convicted?
He means compelled
Convicted?
IMHO, I read the OP as, regardless of how you feel about the character, the way he is written makes your interpretation of Tom be “convicted” as in validated. I interpreted the choice of word, “convicted” as in, after watching the film you have a strong “conviction” in your POV of Tom.
But, that’s just my interpretation. Only the OP can truly clarify the way “convicted” was intended to be used. [+]
It's Tom's fault for ending up the way he did. Could have saved himself a whole lot of trouble if he had just listened. Listening g is key people!!
Tom is a fallible person, like all of us. That’s why he makes such an interesting character study.
Agreed. She told him something she's never told anyone else it's quite possible that if he had actually listened and cared he'd be the one she'd find herself married to. But if you tell someone like Tom that they turn it into "pretend to listen pretend to care" adding it to more steps in the "Unlock Love"
If he actually listened, he would have been oh..you don't want a relationship... i do... guess we should call this off, you're a beautiful person bye! Imma go find someone who actually wants what I want (=someone who wants me as much as I want them)
As she slept with him, they acted as a couple and she came back again and again
Her actions didn't match her words. Summer isn't in the right here either.
Wait, didn't Summer tell Tom she wanted to "just be friends" and then randomly make out with him at work? Fair enough Tom is an infatuated "nice guy" but Summer also gives mixed messages throughout their relationship by saying we're "just friends" and then doing stuff beyond the level of friendship.
This is what I thought and what confused me a lot, but I think that you can still find someone sexually attractive but not romantically attractive. That’s where I think both kind of got lost.
@@bennett7542 yeah I get that, it's one of those situations where there's some wrong on both sides. Neither of them is really the villain because just like in real life, things aren't just black and white.
Saying she dont want anything serious and then ends up getting married to someone stranger.
Indeed! If I were Summer, knowing that Tom wants a serious relationship, I would respect him, keep a distance so he can get over it and find someone new. Instead she just keeps showing up or tries to contact him (looks him up in the park, invites him to a party where she shows him she is getting married to someone else, sends him e-mails, ...). In my view, she also does not listen to him or respect his feelings. And since when do friends have sex? This world has become so superficial, people just having sex as if it means nothing, you can do it with anyone, you don't have to love them. Using people as objects. Makes me sick really....
@@lesleyderamaut7682 When they're friends with benefits.
Neither are hero or villain, I see it from a relationship attachment point of view where he was and anxious preoccupied style and she was a dismissive avoidant style and they brought up their childhood trauma and he put her on a pedestal and her as an avoidant was pushed away by him for those reasons.
👏👏👏👏 you win
Very true. They both had issues-the end.
pretty sure they are projecting heavily about the moving saying tom is right..he never learns..the ending proves hes about to go through it ..again
I'm convinced that the "Reality vs Expectations" scene is meant to show us that we can't trust a subjective narrator. It's the moment where Tom realizes that things are not going the way he wants, but also the moment we realize that some scenes we saw in the movie might just be the "expectations" ones. Not the reality.
I watched this film 3 times in my life. Once when I when I was a preteen, and I agreed with Tom. Then again in my early 20s, and I agreed with Summer. Then one last time, in my mid 20s, when I actually experienced a relationship like this. It was then that I realized we all f$%ked up on some level and that this was needed to learn that
2020 and people still don’t understand this movie
I still see insta posts about the movie and comments are always like Summer’s a bitch he deserved better 🤦♀️
Films like these really can be a meter to show who we really are as an audience.
You should watch I'm thinking of ending things.
Even this channels misunderstands how this movie isn't a romance movie, but a coming of age one. The movie itself outright states it isn't a romance, because it is about Tom growing up in the romantic departement, not actually the romance. He sees a girl (Summer), attempts a relationship with her when she doesn't want to, learns from his mistakes and actually seems ready to attempt a genuine first romance when he meets Autumn.
yeah and LANA WINTERS IN YOUR PFP????
Summer was actually the one who who clearly had a character growth in the movie. She started as cynical who didn't believe in love, marriage, etc. Which the movie explains that that's related to her own divorced parents I believe. Fortunately tough, she found a partner with whom she's willing to risk it all and get married.
It's just that the guy isn't Tom.
All the hints were there.
YES! I totally agree. I always saw it as, when she ended it with him, it was actually the biggest growth moment for her, because she realized they were both drowning in something that wouldn't work. Tom just didn't see it and didn't care because he was in his feelings.
The hints where there already, agree. He just didn't want to see it and wanted to change her. She told him right from the beginning.
Character growth should be related to a moment in a film which causes the progress of personality. Here we don't see one. It's just beginning with one Summer and finishing with another. That's the point which I don't like about the film - it's not clear why she refused marriage in the beginning and then simply accepted it only a few months after the break-up.
One thing I feel isn't discussed enough is this: I don't dislike Summer because she didn't reciprocate Tom's feelings. I disliked Summer because of the way she acted with him after they parted ways. She knew how he felt about her and that he was still trying to fight to win her back. Tom does have a valid point that it was cruel of her to dance with him and act flirtatious with him at the wedding and then to invite him to a party at her apartment that she shared with another man that she was in a serious relationship with. I agree Tom romanticized her and never truly knew her but let's be honest. Dancing closely, flirting, and inviting someone who has made their affection clear to you to a private party when you know you don't feel the same is not a clear way to show you are not interested. It honestly makes sense that Tom would think he was back in the game after the way she was behaving. And then later when he asks her why she acted that way with him when she knew how he felt about her and she simply responds "Because I wanted to" it shows that she too is a selfish person. I think a lot of people walk away feeling like Tom is the good guy because yeah he was delusional but he never acted in a way that was meant to hurt anyone. Summer acted intimate with him knowing he would likely be hurt when he realized she was with someone else and intentionally left that detail out when reconnecting with him at the party which was cruel.
what you say really describes a problem in society, the selfishness. « I can do what I want to, I a not responsible for the other’s feeling ». Even if person says something to the effect that she doesn’t want a serious/long term relashionship, she acts like she wants one, and sends mixed signals. And don’t tell me that the guy should learn to accept a casual relationship or a friends with benefits situation. These relationships may be acceptable on the social front, but they don’t necesserilay suit every person.
thank you!!! i’m so tired of seeing everyone side with summer 100% because we’re being SOO unrealistic about tom’s character, especially in this video. its realistic and natural for tom to romanticize a person they have feelings for and aren’t very sure of what’s going on with that person, like in grade school how we have crushes on people we barely know. although it’s childish, it’s not necessarily selfish or cruel, it’s just immature. we’ve all been a tom where we want something we can’t necessarily have and believe that we’re special enough to get it, it’s natural to feel that way!! we all think we’re better than we actually are, same with summer!! she felt like she wasn’t responsible for what she had with tom but she entirely played into his infatuation knowing how he felt about her. yes, she did say she never wanted a relationship but personally i think it’s unrealistic to get into an intimate relationship like they had and not expect someone to catch feelings!!! tom has an immature idea of love and summer has a too rational idea of love. there’s not necessarily a right or wrong, but to say that tom is a nice guy is kind of a stretch, i think his character is incredibly common
I think your comment was very kind and human so I'm going to allow myself to jump in. I have been the Tom in the relationship, it took me so long to see it and accept it. It was my responsabilty to back off when the other person told they didn't want anything serious. Nevertheless, I kept getting my hopes all up when the other person would do something nice for me. All those hopes were crushed just like Tom's. The party scene is the only one I don't relate to Tom because when I happened to find that person by chance, I used to keep things light, a bit distant, no physical, no intimate, no flirty because I knew the other person always LIKED me. They always liked my personality, my jokes, my takes and my body, they just didn't LOVE me. So, I kept my emotional distance and that's what Tom could've done in the party. He can't control how Summer behaves, but he can keep his feet in the ground and specially if he had taken the time to KNOW Summer, to UNDERSTAND her behavior he would have known that Summer's attitude meant anything serious, as always. But he didn't, he didn't stop to analyze himself, his actions, his thoughts and he didn't know Summer enough, he only knew his version. And that's a take from a person that cried my eyes out for Tom, always felt identified with him and I loved the movie ending because I just got out there to find my "Autumn" ... That was 10 years from now, it took me that long to accept Summer didn't do anything wrong, he could have always retrieve himself from that situation as did I and as any adult can. Sorry for the long text, I'm guessing no one is reading all this hahaha
This is exactly my ex did to me. That dude was in a relationship with a new girl but would send me messages like missed you today, happy rose day. He also told his friend to tell me to call him. He knew I wasn’t over him yet. Still he did this. But thanks to his selfish actions, I finally got over him.
I guess people expect people to grow and continue to act civil /respectful to them. Thats what she is guilty of treating him as someone who has grown
"you like the Smiths!"
"....YOU like the Smiths?"
Bruv, millions of people do 😂
EVERYONE likes the Smiths lol
No.
@@Janellabelle Used to love the Smiths. Maybe I still love 3/4 of the Smiths.
Thanks man for reality check.
You are so cool for quoting that omggg 🤩 nah fr gtfo attention seeker
last time i was this early, Tom thought Summer was his soulmate
Haha I’m upvoting ur comment so it gets top comment
As a nice guy who watched this last week, this movie is so accurate it’s scary… have literally been in the exact situation to many times. Its a real self-reflection type watch.
It's all fun and games until you meet a Tom in real life.
@@andressag1475 I wish you happiness.
aHHHH plamondon :D
You know it's amazing when two people can watch the same thing and each one saw a different movie
I was him...
@@andressag1475 this is nuts!
Being a recipient of unrequited love is painful too.
This is a narrative that should be explored more because it is painful. So painful in fact that it makes people date someone they don’t care for and feel guilty and/or a bad person for not being invested in someone who is such a catch in many ways.
I mean its hard to love a person you never were with. Meaning you fell in love with the idea of them..
She did say to him " I'm not looking for anything serious", although she stays with him and kept encouriging him, she never cut it from the roots, knowing that he was madly in love with her. I think they both did wrong.
yeah actions speak louder than words
She enjoyed his company. He could have walked away at any point when he realized she wasn’t offering what he was expecting, that was HIS responsibility. But instead of adjusting to reality he tried to force it.
@@evaphillips2102 At the beginning of the movie you could make this argument. But there was a point in the middle of the movie where he did walk away and refused to continue the relationship unless she took the relationship seriously. He tells her if she wanted only something casual that it had to end there and then.
Now, if Summer really wasn't looking for anything serious, then obviously there is only one thing that should have happened at this moment. They break up. It's done. It's over. Tom got foolishly over-invested because he watched too many Disney movies. Pack it up. Nothing more to analyze.
But of course that's not what happens. Summer goes back to him and essentially tells him she's ready to start treating this more seriously. To say she wasn't "looking for anything serious" is not an accurate depiction of what happened. But that's why this movie is awesome, they are both inherently really flawed individuals. To devalue either one of them to one action is black and white thinking and doesn't depict who they are as overall human beings.
That sounds nice guyish to me tbh. Just because someone has sex with you or spents a certain amount of time with you, it doesn't mean they lead you on, when they initially say that they don't want anything serious. Sure, she could've stopped meeting him sooner, you can argue that she was irresponsible in that regard. But he could've taken her stance on the topic more serious, which he didn't. He also continued to meet her.
On a personal note, there are still plenty of comments from many people claiming that sex and love are not separable, which is simply not true. There are enough people who can, Tom apparently isn't one of them, which isn't terrible at all. But Summer was and was it until the end of their relationship. I see Tom more in the wrong for trying to overstep those boundaries although she made her point clear.
@@tuffluffghostSummer does tell him from the beginning she doesn't want something serious, because it is better to be transparent with this stuff from the start still leave room for things to develop into something serious if the impossible (love) happens.
I feel like what most guys miss here is that Summer is human too, she leads on with not wanting anything serious, but she also gives him a chance to step up.
There are several moments when you can see how Summer actually gave the guy a chance, and he misses it completly, most obviously when he decides to fight the guy in the bar, with when she straight up asks him how he actually likes her, with how she sees how uncool he reacts once she tells him she is not official with him, or when she tells him that she likes Ringo Starr, and he doesn't even listen to her and react to her, he is busy telling her that she is wrong and that her reasoning is not logical. She on more than one occasion feels that he is not curious about her as a person, she is just a girl he has attached a label on. She indeed gave him a chance, but he also didn't make the best of that chance, and she broke up with him eventually. And what is not working out here is, that she is emotionally aware of what she can handle. Tom is not, he from the beginning is an insecure guy that flip flops about how he thinks this pretty woman already has all the control over his emotional state when they have exchanged 5 sentences with eachother. Even until the very end, he has no concept of selfrespect at all. Any selfrespecting person would walk out of a situation that is hurting themselves, no matter what is causing the pain, if he noticed that Summer has already hurt him, and he is not a stable enough person to cope with the pain this person causes, he is even going to be less stable in a relationship with her. He never reflects on how unhealthy his obsession with her is, he also has no agency and continues to blame her for his emotions.
This movie is a cultural hallmark (no pun intended) I was 21 and madly in love in a very toxic relationship. Before we had defined toxic behavior, and it could be easily misconstrued as ‘romantic’, before topics of manipulation, and lack of boundaries, were an open conversation. Tied to relationships born from ignorance, perpetuated by “pop songs” and Disney’s “happy ever after”.
Now at 32, with my ideas of romance redefined especially during this pandemic, what partnership and family truly mean, and not what they do for me. The unveiling of our collective narcissism and self importance, is a welcomed wake up call. Life is messy and hard, love is the most important thing you can give and receive but it’s not what defines us. The conversation surrounding 500 Days has grown and evolved with a generation and I’m very happy it exists in a space that sheds light on our own misconceptions about love and what we think it is versus the very real power it wields.
Much respect to the take and many other essayists on this platform for deconstructing such a pivotal moment in our culture and our personal lives ❤️💔❤️
Tom is like ross geller if we take out the comedy.
Did anyone also notice the entire communication during and after the showing of The Graduate? She is literally sobbing and all he asked is is “You okay?” what he could have said was “Hey, are you ok? we can talk about it after the movie” and then after they left the movie, she says “Im just being stupid” and Tom leaves it alone instead of actually trying to comfort her. You cannot force someone to vent to you but he should have encouraged it a little more instead of just accepting it. That’s not normal movie behavior so something was obviously seriously wrong and he’s so focused on pleasure (going to the movies together) he doesn’t really consider Summer’s feelings..then Summer mentions she is tired and thinks she going to call it a day. Tom accepts her decision only for a brief second but once again romanticizes the situation and ultimately ignores her request and says “PANCAKES” Tom your pushing boundaries…She literally says she’s tired and wants to go home and he’s not being considerate and I honestly don’t blame her for breaking up at the restaurant. Tom has toxic traits and so does Summer. Summer expected Tom not to get attached to her when sex literally creates emotional attachment and it’s scientifically proven…she invited him to a party without telling him PRIOR she was engaged. As a adult, the mature thing to do is give people heads up and communicate what’s going on in your life especially given her and Tim’s history. They both had toxic traits period.
Gosh, I am still not that sure about this one. Personally, I mostly see this interpretation everywhere and not the other one - and it has a lot of good points. But let’s be real here, Summer is also acting quite contrary towards him and toys with his feelings. He confesses his love for her, she says she doesn’t want a relationship, yet always follows it with some obviously romantic and/or sexual gesture out of what’s probably just boredom. They both really should have been much more clear with each other upfront (I realise she says she doesn’t want a relationship but she obviously changes her mind in the end, so Tom is probably mostly just not the guy for her, which is okay). I always thought the beauty of the film is in that is isn’t anybody’s fault per se but that it tells the story of two people making mistakes and miscommunicating.
Interestingly enough, men are the ones who convinced me that “you are nice/sexually attracted to me, and I feel the same so you owe me a relationship, no matter what you clearly stated about us from day 1” isn’t even a sympathetic position.
Showing attraction to someone isn’t toying with their emotions if you’re clear that you don’t want to be in a relationship with them, which she initially _and_ repeatedly stated.
So much so that he argued and berated her for daring to not want a relationship with him.
He knew the deal, he just decided she didn’t have the moral right to not be his girlfriend, and spent their time together punishing and rebuking her for that instead of enjoying what she _was_ willing to willingly give (sex, attention), which was a decent offer.
Her marrying someone else isn’t relevant in any way to what happened between them.
I keep thinking of _you don’t own me_ by saygrace 🤣
@@danielle8571 I see what you’re saying and I do agree with most of it. I am just trying to point out that it wasn’t so simple - one of them just should have distanced themselves from the situation. If someone is so obviously infatuated with you, do you keep coming for emotional support or sex, even If it’s obvious they’re misinterpreting it completely and it’s only creating tension and desperate feelings? I don’t know, I would probably feel really uncomfortable with it and find someone else to just hook up with. Especially If you work with them. Summer obviously has no obligation to be with him or apologise or anything and you’re right, she doesn’t owe him. I can’t help but think though, If the roles were reversed, the narrative would likely read “naive romantic heroine keeps getting used by a shallow douchebag until she finally finds Mr. Right”. Tom doesn’t pay attention to her and how she feels, that is his own fault and blindness. However, Summer kinda does the same thing. Which is why I personally think both didn’t handle this that well and that’s what I actually really like about the film - everyone makes mistakes and figuring out relationships can sometimes feel great, frustrating and dissapointing at the same time.
@@Mirabelle176 I agree with you. To me, they were both in the wrong. Tom should have listened to Summer. But Summer should have done the same thing. If a guy liked me, but I didn't like him the same way... I'd just avoid doing things that would give him the wrong idea. The unreciprocated feelings would just make me feel awkward. But Summer spent a lot of couple-y and sexy time with him and dated him (exclusively too) for a year. It just didn't seem so "casual" to some people.
And Tom, being the emotionally vulnerable and hopeless romantic guy that he was... held on to every glimmer of hope she'd throw at him. Not saying that it was right. He was acting like some humans would do. I was also a Tom... and believe me, "love" could get really addictive. Sometimes, you'd do anything to keep it going even though it would be a big mistake.
@@fls6201 Yep, exactly what I'm thinking. I think I have been both Tom AND Summer in my life, most people probably have to some extent. It's pretty human (even If inadvisable) to read into things If you really like someone - and let's be honest, going on dates, playing house in IKEA and sleeping together isn't just any old "thing", they are very specifically "relationshippy" things. I had a friend in my close circle who was in love with me and while I don't think I owed him anything (and didn't actually give him anything) I was careful not to flirt or give him way too much attention - not because he's a guy and somehow he owns me but because I didn't want to confuse him or hurt him...my biggest crush from high school did the same with me and I'm grateful, because as much as I inflicted that crush on myself (and he wasn't responsible for my feelings) it was painful enough without the dichotomy of "he says one thing but does the opposite". What a rant, sorry!
My point is he _didn’t_ have the wrong idea. He knew the whole time. He simply decided that she didn’t matter enough for him to respect her decision.
And that she was the perfect mannequin for him to project his dream girl onto
He’s not a victim of anything but his own narcissism really.
There has to be one moral standard for both of them. And everyone.
Being responsible for communicating your own standards and standing by them, and respecting what is communicated back. That’s a good one.
She did that. No relationship. Sex. Affection. Until one of us is no longer interested.
He didn’t. No relationship. Sex. Tantrums and gaslighting. Until he can no longer pretend she’s his dream girl. Then guilt trip.
She wasn’t even a real person to him.
Which is why I disagree even about her owing him sympathy.
He needs stern a reality check before the next girl comes.
Most importantly - Even if she had wanted him, his entitlement and disinterest in her as a human being would have made it impossible. 😖
Edit:
She didn’t need to do anything different because the only one dissatisfied with the outcome is him. The end didn’t match up with what he wanted and was clearly told he couldn’t have.
I’m confused. Was the director’s intention to show how the nice guy isn’t such a nice guy or to make a revenge movie against his ex? Because those two intentions go directly against each other in my opinion.
I think the movie is a gender flip on "the player and the one", you know where the guy is a player until he meets the one. it's a subversion because the story is usually told from the perspective of the one, or is at least about the one. Tom, in this case is not "the one".
I think he is also satirising himself a bit, too. He relates to Tom's character but he see his mistakes better than Tom does by the end of the movie. Doesn't mean all the hurt and anger have gone away tho, even if you acknowledge your part in it and take responsibility. I think it's somewhere between a work in progress and a step forward.
It's about how we grow as partners. It's not a romance movie, but a coming of age one. Tom basically knows nothing of romance, he's like a little kid with unhealthy misconceptions. Summer basically was a lesson for Tom, and the girl he met at the end, Autumn, was going to be his first relationship, but our first ones often aren't our last ones, so Autumn was going to be another lesson for Tom. If you understand that, then it's easy to see the director is showing how he grew as a romantic partner by using Tom and that like Tom, he didn't treat his ex like a human being he needed to understand, and that in the end, both the diretor and Tom don't really know what 'she' is like.
I think he acknowledges the errors of his ways because he couldn't understand why his ex led him on then got married. He clearly looked deep into himself and realized he probably wasn't thinking of her and was just infatuated.
The writer and the director are two different people. I wonder if this might be one of those situations where the two were actually somewhat at odds.
I like the moment when Tom gets into the fight. He does it because of his fragile ego and masculinity. But he is deluded that fight is for Summer' benefit
This movie was just ahead of it's time but was released at a time where the "nice guy" character was more normalized
''I love how she makes me feel ''. Sounds like my ex. Loving someone solely for the way they make you feel, and not for their own unique qualities and quirks, is really immature and selfish.
Yes. It’s like... of course I love how my partner makes me feel but that’s not what makes me love HIM
i don’t think there’s anything wrong with loving the way someone makes you feel. it’s not the sole thing that you love about someone. but i love that my partner gives me feelings ive never felt before. that doesn’t mean that’s the sole reason i love him.
@@kbcutie101 that's completely true!
I think the problem is that Tom was in love with the way his IDEA of Summer made him feel.
Remember this film is still in his perspective so who knows what else Summer has done to hint that she doesn't want anything with him and that he doesn't really care for her a person that much but just like the idea that she makes him feel good
It reminds me of most relationships I had in my 20s but that's how we learn. I always loved the expectations Vs reality scene, I think about it often to bring myself back down to earth when I romanticise things/people.
I had an experience with a guy that made me sympathise with Summer. I was Summer.
Me too. The realization wasn't pleasant
@@Sandishee Hope you're doing wel
Me too....
I think Autumn is just another season for him, that's why she's also an architect She likes "the same bizarre old crap" he likes
Then prepare for Winter. Then Spring. And comes around Summer.
@Akshay 004 if had to guess Tom was suffering with depression the whole time he was with Summer. That's not a great place to beif you want a relationship. While Tom is doing better all on his own I'm not sure he has the coping strategies to deal with another relationship. Because he never dealt with his core issues he might end up in the same place.
@Akshay 004 it's a step in a right direction but just the first step. He can easily backslide into his old ways and the end of movie kinda foreshadows that.
@Akshay 004 I sort of hated Don Jon but since I haven't seen it a while it's hard to remember why. All I remember was the guy was superficial and his girlfriend was superficial.
@Akshay 004 While I agree rom-coms can produce unrealistic fantasies, there's nothing wrong with escaping into light-hearted fun once-in-awhile. We just have to remember to separate the movie from reality. It's so interesting how humans haven't developed mastery over that yet, but it's possible.
This story taught me never to get into situationships no matter how hot the person is. So not worth it.
Not me realizing that my sister would basically watch this after major breakups and put herself in Tom’s place . .
that's depressing.
Last time I was this early, the take was still called screen prism
😏 Noice
I so prefer Screen Prism, much better name
LMAO I really missed calling the channel Screenprism-it just sounded better.
Honestly, I like The Take better. It's perfect.
Nobody remembers the scene that she invited her ex who was still in love with her to her engagement party without telling him? Isn’t that cruel?
Super cruel considering she claimed she didnt want a relationship
She did say "Our place", and she wasn't engaged when she invited him... Tom wasn't listening... Rather didn't want to listen
@@thestunner31615 maybe not engaged, but already in serious relationship that she didn't tell him about.
@@sharku8417 yep... Like he says in the movie...
I adore that movie though
@@thestunner31615 our place could be roommates with someone. Doesn't not necessarily mean a significant other.
I have to post this. I love how everyone talks about how Tom didn’t listen to Summer when she said she didn’t want a relationship, but no one mentions the notion of Summer never listening to Tom who was adamant that he wanted a relationship. To me, this film was awesome because it showed the audience that humans are flawed.
And we only listen what we want to hear.
Exactly especially considering the fact that due to his shyness she made the all the advances that one would assume to lead to a relation ship . I feel she contradicts herself a lot during her relationship and it would be something that confuses Tom . However I still do believe toms naïveté paired with his hope is ultimately what lead to this destined to end relationship .
Exactly! We can sit here and make Tom the villain for not listening to Summer, taking into account her feelings and understanding her.......when she is exactly guilty of the same thing? Tom wanted a relationship with her, Summer wanted a fling. That's what her relationships all were before she met Tom and that's what she expected Tom to be. She's used to guys falling for her (the narrator points this out) so she doesn't really take into account that he has actual feelings about her. That's why she doesn't understand his behavior at all. But that's why Tom was *right* in the end. Summer did end up finding love and her soul mate, which is what Tom was looking for and thought Summer was........Summer wasn't sure about it with Tom but she was sure about it with her husband. However, you can sympathize with Tom in how he felt led astray, especially in the expectations vs reality sequence. Summer was never upfront that she had gotten engaged. Why? Why hide this from Tom? As someone commented below, she probably didn't care about his feelings. Isn't that what this video is arguing that Tom did to Summer throughout the entirety of their relationship? Everybody who is defending Summer's behavior and going after "nice guy" Tom is not understanding the film whatsoever. Both are guilty of doing the exact same thing to one another. JGL liking that post about Tom being the real villain is also defeating the purpose.....he's going against the skewered perception that fans have of the film defending Tom but also strengthening the skewered perception that Tom is the villain. Both are technically the villain in this relationship......or we call it what it is: these two were incompatible with one another and it was a doomed romance.....but it was an important romance for the both of them.
@@melonhead8052 It was both though. Tom was too naive and lovestruck to see the problems but Summer not outright coming out and telling him the issues is on her. Neither one did a good job at communicating things to the other......that is ultimately what killed the relationship.
@@crater044 Nobody is making him the villain, the actor’s even confirmed he is the asshole
I feel like Summer is still partially at fault. I've watched this movie multiple times since it had come out and gone through the "Summer is a bitch stage" then the "Tom is an idiot stage" which is where I feel like most people leave their interpretation but I still think that both of them contributed to what happened. They were both showing red flags and it was obvious that Tom felt for Summer way more than she felt for him. Summer is not an idiot and could definitely recognize that Tom was way more into her than she was into him. She could've ended that whole relationship way earlier and the impact on Tom would have been way less devastating. I'm not saying she led him on because she was honest with him but it was clear he could not handle the relationship that she wanted and should have left him as soon as that was obvious.
THIS
I agree. She should’ve just cut it off when it became obvious he couldn’t handle it
How is everyone so blind! YES Tom has responsibility for his emotions, he should’ve woken up and LISTENED to Summer when she said she didn’t want anything serious. BUT it is also SUMMER’S RESPONSIBILITY to not string someone who is clearly IN LOVE with her along. Just saying ‘I don’t want anything serious’ is NOT ENOUGH when your actions CONTRADICT you! She is selfish. She knows Tom for the meantime gets her needs met AT THE EXPENSE OF HIS. She knowingly BREAKS HIS HEART and doesn’t GIVE A SHIT or do anything to try to ALLEVIATE HIS PAIN (like breaking things off if she wasn’t that into him!) She has a classic AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE.
I completely agree. Both parties wanted different things and neither party cut it off! They are both at fault.
Because this channel and comment section is full of misandrists
As a woman I agree that both the man and woman (Tom and Summer) are at fault here in different ways but they were both young and had a lot of growing and learning and maturing to do. Although I do believe that Summer was considerably more mature than Tom in that despite her playing with his emotions she eventually realized she could never be happy with him and love him, not the way he loved her, not the way he deserved. And she confronted that realization by calling it quits for good instead of being emotionally avoidant and going back to him again to sleep with him and lead him on, like she did previously. Tom continues to pine for her knowing she doesn't want the whole relationship marriage ordeal he wants and feels blindsided when he finds out not long after she's engaged to someone else. And he's all sad and whiny cause he feels entitled to have her like she's some kind of object/trophy cause he "put in the work" that not many other men are willing to. But in reality he never cared to know the real her and idealized her, put her on a pedestal she felt she could never live up to. Ultimately that pressure to be the dream girl Tom thinks she is and not just a normal human being was a ticking time bomb that did just that, explode. And upon giving 500 days a second watch, you understand eventually that Tom wasn't just betrayed like that the way he thinks he was, he deliberately missed the signs seeing only the romantic part of their relationship that he wanted to see and blatantly ignoring the rest (how she was feeling, her emotions, her pain, her turmoil, etc.). And you realize too that what her fiance did differently from Tom was wanting to get to know the real her (he comes up to her and asks her what she's reading out of nothing but genuine curiosity about her, not as a gateway to win her over).
@@serena1951 Well said.
Facts bruh
bro this is what call out culture should be, this makes people look into a mirror
for real, I'm glad i watched this movie before i becoming such a delusional guy who forces "love" just to make my day better everyday.
I feel the ending isn't stating that what Tom thinks is true. With the whole seasons theme I think it's more about letting the idea of "the One" go and see life and love as ongoing opposed to static. Summer learned to love from Tom and he learned from Summer to not build his life around someone else but himself (and hopefully being more aware of his toxic behavior).
I like your interpretation better.
Agree In life we learne many thing from other person
The reason this movie is so "misunderstood" is because most of us have met a person who would be the one, but it didn't simply work. In other words, we would like Tom to get Summer, as a form of redemption for what happened to us, and since we relate to him, we get to hate Summer. I had my one who simply didn't want to be with me, and after watching this movie, I sympathize with the guy, but I ultimately realize it was all my fault for not realizing she didn't want anything from the beginning.
Ouch, going thru this.. it was my fault
I never for one second thought Tom was in the right here. I've been Tom. I can point at why though I don't know if it's the same for everyone. My mom is one of those moms that if I mention liking a girl suddenly my mom's reinforcing every delusion infatuation gives me and my friends did the same.
I've rarely had friends just straight up be "dude no just no. Instead I'll say something stupid like "But this has to mean something right?" and they're all quick to agree and reinforce the delusions. I spent years even as I dated and married other women hyper focusing on "the one that got away" who was still a friend. I took the fact that at one time she had a crush on me and blew it up into this hugely romantic timelock thing where I was just putting in the time and finding the right combo to make her like me again.
Romantic comedies are only a part of it. I think a lot of Nice Guys are the guys that struck out when we were young with friends, girlfriends etc. So we're bad at social cues and we have to learn all of them from movies, TV etc. And while we understand "people can't really fly like Superman" we don't think the "It's just a movie" about things like social interactions. Especially when movies cast guys like us as the Heroes.
Then we make friends in adulthood who never question our framing of things. "Well but she said this, in this circumstance" should have been "that's just pointing out something funny not her saying keep trying" which is what they should have said when I fixated on her pointing out she had a crush on me when we'd met during a conversation years later.
I kept pointing at her saying it "out of the blue" but really it was in context of the conversation and that mattered. So people know we were in the car driving by a skate park. She said, "Man I always have had such a thing for skaters" and I said, "Well you remember I was a skater when we met" and her response was "Yeah I used to have a crush on you"
She was just commenting on it not trying to be all "and I still do"
So when I saw the movie I knew Tom was in the wrong and reading too much into things she did say and never asking what she meant nor caring.
I like that you pointed out how friends and family can mean well, but help fuel toxic thoughts and behavior. I try never to be that kind of friend or family member, because people end up getting hurt.
That was very insightful, thank you for sharing.
@@rainpooper7088 You're welcome
@@Aster_RiskThank you
Insightful , i liked a girl for the last 3-4 years and i finally asked her out last month and she said no , it was tough , drank some(a lot)alcohol but hoping to move on 👍probably for the best
We don’t understand Summer because the creator didn’t understand his “Summer”
Yes--I suspect the director wanted to deconstruct romantic fantasies, but the screenwriter wanted to make a Revenge film against the woman who crushed his romantic Fantasy by marrying someone else...
We don't have to understand her though. It's okay for the film to just be from a limited perspective, as long as by the end we can see why that perspective is flawed. We don't need to know Summer's inner process or why she thinks the way she does. The fact is that she said she didn't want a relationship, and she didn't vibe with Tom, and that's reason enough for her to have her decisions respected.
@Akshay 004 I think that is the price for ignoring red flags with Summer. It's easy to blame people rather than admit that it is half his fault and half the truth that she is not solely for him.
Yes, the first phrase of the movie "..you bitch" i forgot the name that was in there-
@@belhlv I think that's supposed to be tongue in cheek, he's being self deprecating.
My interpretation of the film has shifted about in the nearly 12 years since it was released, but what's consistently impressed me about the story is that it never felt like either Tom or Summer were "the hero" or "the villain", that neither one of them was being entirely honest with themselves or the other, and that no one is "fixed" in the end by finding The One.
I think the point of the scene where he asks Autumn out is that he’s grown enough to have some courage, which he didn’t when he first became interested in Summer
Different interpretations. I like yours.
Exactly, before he said he would never ask Summer out. By asking Autumn it means he overcame it
I agree! I hated tom but I do feel like he at least had some sort of character development, we see in his relationship with summer that he was always taking on the passive role and expected summer to take the more active role because he was stuck in the mentality that he needed a manic pixie dream girl to come to his rescue, but with autumn he was the one who initiated the date which shows that he's progressed past the state where he expected people to do things for him. we don't know if he's still going to be putting autumn on a pedestal, but at least we know he's grown somewhat from his relationship with summer. that's how I saw it at least.
nice take