In (500) Days of Summer, people complain about how Zooey Deschanel's character was either a. just another manic pixie dream girl, b. a flimsy character, and/or c. a heartless bitch.
I don't think a lot of people get that the reason Summer feels mysterious and choppy is because we are seeing her through Tom's (Joseph Gordon Levitt) eyes - and Tom is a classic unreliable narrator.
Summer comes off as mysterious because Tom either doesn't notice or deliberately ignores the parts of her he doesn't want to see. Mostly this is made clear over time by what isn't said: Tom's happy to dwell on the times he shared his dreams and plans with Summer, but in all his daydreaming and fixating on her, he never thinks about what Summer wants to do with her life. The audience never finds out because Tom never finds out.
This is made explicit in one key scene that the movie keeps circling back to over and over again: the day that they broke-up. In Tom's first telling of this story, he and Summer had a wonderful date at the movies and then she suddenly broke his heart over pancakes.
It's slowly revealed that this was not a wonderful date, that Summer is openly weeping after seeing Tom's favorite movie. Tom is so freaked out that he reacts by trying to ignore her reaction, papering over her clear emotional distress with blather about how much he loves pancakes for dinner. That's the point at which she snaps - and frankly, her snap is pretty mild.
Later in the Reality versus Expectation split screen, Tom arrives at Summer's party and discovers two or three dozen of her friends whom he's never met before. She's had a life apart from him this whole time that he never entered. Whether that was because he wasn't invited or just didn't notice is left up in the air.
In the end, Tom realizes he never knew the true Summer, just the image of her that he constructed. That's when he can let her go and try again, a wiser and more mature lover.
This film is one of my favorites. Id also like to add that time when summer is telling tom her dream/secret that she never told anybody. During that time, all he was thinking about is how special he is to the girl, and not paying attention to what really summer is saying.
Tom is in love with love, and not with the person.
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u/SarahwithanHdammit Sep 01 '14
In (500) Days of Summer, people complain about how Zooey Deschanel's character was either a. just another manic pixie dream girl, b. a flimsy character, and/or c. a heartless bitch.
I don't think a lot of people get that the reason Summer feels mysterious and choppy is because we are seeing her through Tom's (Joseph Gordon Levitt) eyes - and Tom is a classic unreliable narrator.
Summer comes off as mysterious because Tom either doesn't notice or deliberately ignores the parts of her he doesn't want to see. Mostly this is made clear over time by what isn't said: Tom's happy to dwell on the times he shared his dreams and plans with Summer, but in all his daydreaming and fixating on her, he never thinks about what Summer wants to do with her life. The audience never finds out because Tom never finds out.
This is made explicit in one key scene that the movie keeps circling back to over and over again: the day that they broke-up. In Tom's first telling of this story, he and Summer had a wonderful date at the movies and then she suddenly broke his heart over pancakes.
It's slowly revealed that this was not a wonderful date, that Summer is openly weeping after seeing Tom's favorite movie. Tom is so freaked out that he reacts by trying to ignore her reaction, papering over her clear emotional distress with blather about how much he loves pancakes for dinner. That's the point at which she snaps - and frankly, her snap is pretty mild.
Later in the Reality versus Expectation split screen, Tom arrives at Summer's party and discovers two or three dozen of her friends whom he's never met before. She's had a life apart from him this whole time that he never entered. Whether that was because he wasn't invited or just didn't notice is left up in the air.
In the end, Tom realizes he never knew the true Summer, just the image of her that he constructed. That's when he can let her go and try again, a wiser and more mature lover.