500 Day of Summer review

So it is no secret that Zooey Deschanel is one of my favourite actresses, and this movie is a great example of her amazing abilities. So before I actually talk about this movie, I need to mention how amazing the soundtrack is, with music by The Smiths, Regina Spektor, The Black Lips, Wolfmother, and so many other amazing artists. The music is so perfectly chosen to suit the mood of the movie. So this movie is not a typical linear movie, as it jumps back and forth through time to tell the story. The actors are so perfectly cast, they are real, and believable, and I feel like we can find a bit of ourselves in each of them. This movie was extremely well done, with the perfect soundtrack to set the mood for the movie. I feel like this movie is very underrated and doesn't get the attention that it needs, I really do feel like this movie has an intelligence and a timelessness that everyone needs to view. In this review, I am going to get personal, as I found a very meaningful and deep connection with the main character. So this is a movie of boy meets girl, but this is NOT a love story... We have Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who is a hopeless romantic, whose life's view about love and destiny is shaped by listening to too much sad British pop-songs. And then you have Summer (Zooey Deschenel) who is a person who doesn't believe in fairy-tale love, or well love at all. She seems detached and distant at times. So Tom meets Summer, and he falls for her, but she from the beginning says that she is not looking for a relationship, and that she wants to just be friends. The thing is she was honest and up front, but he let himself get swept away with love. I find myself identifying with Tom, as I also am a hopeless romantic, and I also believe in the concept of true love and happily ever after, and all that. Tom is relatable in many ways, and his character is in part tragic, but he also plays the fool, and I get that, I mean I see a lot of myself in his character. But, here is the thing, Summer didn't owe him anything, just because he fell in love with her, doesn't obligate her to love him back, people are entitled to their own feelings, and you can't make them feel something that they don't. She was up front with him, and I get that he can't help that he fell in love with her, but he isn't entitled to her love. So I think, that at its heart this movie is a cautionary tale, and it's theme is perfectly summed up in one of the deleted scenes where Tom is on a blind date and she says to him: "it doesn't seem like she (Summer) broke your heart, but you did". That quote really hits me very deeply, and it makes me think about myself, and some of the heartbreaks that I have felt, and how in the end did she really break my heart or was it me who is responsible for my heart being broken. We can't expect people to live up to our images of them, they are not obligated to live up to our images of them, the feelings that we create, and the expectations that we have, and all of that is created by ourselves, not by the other person, but by our ideas of that person. I was broken up with once by a woman saying, "you aren't in love with me, you are in love with the idea of me", it took me years to sus out the meaning of that, but what that means, I feel like Tom figured out the hard way in this movie. I mean there are bits of Summer and Tom in all of us, and I think that their story is an important lesson for us all. I do believe in true love, and this movie doesn't set out to change that belief, but it does warn us, and remind us, that just because we feel love, doesn't mean that we are entitled the other person's love, that that love is theirs alone to give how they are moved to give it. Tom couldn't make Summer love him, or feel for him what he felt for her, and that was a very hard lesson for him to learn. I feel like in my life, I have struggled with that same lesson, and to make it even more relatable I have been faced with that realization by a girl with the same name, and who knows maybe it was watching this movie, that better prepared myself for that rejection. There is nothing wrong with being a hopeless romantic, there is nothing wrong with being the fool that rushes in, there is nothing wrong with believing in fairy-tale romance and a happily ever after. Those things are beautiful and the things that movies and music are made of...but that isn't this movie, this movie is about the realization that just because you feel it, that the other person is not always going to feel it too, and that that is ok. When a girl/boy tells you, I am not looking for a boyfriend/girlfriend and you think that you can suppress your feelings, and you find out in the end that you want more than what they can give you, and you are heartbroken and crushed in the end, that is your heartbreak, that is you that crushed you, NOT them, so fucking own that heartache. Sorry this review got a bit personal, but I feel that that is the point of this movie, that this movie is meant to give you an important truth about love and relationships. Do I recommend this movie? Yes a million times yes. I know I am usually really into horror and sci-fi movies, but this movie is intelligent, this movie is really powerful, and this movie is a must see. I think every teenager needs to watch this movie and have a long sit down conversation about this movie, and its themes. I think that there are so many people of all genders that need to learn the lesson that this movie sets out to teach. There is nothing wrong with the "friendzone", it is a fucking beautiful place to be, if your feelings run too deep, that isn't their fault, that is yours, they don't owe you anything, so deal with your heart ache, grow and move on. I still struggle with that moving on from my heartache, I am so much like Tom in many ways, but I am trying, and I feel that in the course of this movie, that he learned that lesson too. And yes this is a movie about boy meets girl, and yes this is NOT a love story, but that doesn't mean that it ends badly, please watch this movie all the way through, it is one of my favourites for a really good reason.