500 days of seasons

500 Days of Summer (pun intended) transcends your typical romance comedy. It is far from your sentimental, sappy love stories, save one cheesy part towards the end. This film screams indie all over from the soundtrack with The Smiths, covers of The Pixies (all your old school wonders) right up to Zooey Deschanel's argyle prints and mid-calf skirts.



Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) was a fine example of the relational formation of Duck's Filtering theory. They were colleagues; Summer was the new secretary (sociological or incidental cues), Tom was attracted to Summer's physical appearance.

At the beginning on the trailer it plays the scene of them having their first conversation. Tom was listening to his music, and Summer strike a conversation up, for she too enjoyed The Smiths. From one's taste in music, one can roughly shape out the other person's preferences as well.

For instance, my friend and I both enjoy The Smiths too and we both fancy plaid shirts and the same movies, we go to the same clubs and so on.

Then Tom uses this trait of similarity to get Summer's attention by blasting The Smiths in the office.

However, they followed through Knapps Model of Relational Development. Throughout, it seems that Summer is slowly letting Tom into her life, through snippets of her pasts that she had never told anyone except him and the walls around his heart starts to crumble. Then Summer drops the bomb on Tom. Throughout the whole relationship, Summer has been in control. She was the one who threw herself to kiss Tom at the photocopying room, she was the one who initiated that they keep the relationship light, she was the one holding the strings to the relationship, subtly but obviously, she was the one to give him the cold shoulder, to pull her hand away when he wants to hold, to give excuses like "I'm tired" to avoid a conflict and lastly to drop the bomb on him.

This has what relationships nowadays are. The roles of genders are reversed. Guys don't have to be the one taking initiative, girls can be the one who is out to seek fun. In this fast paced world, they sometimes prefer a no hassle, no strings attached relationship. Sometimes, physical attraction is enough to spark the beginning of one relationship. Then physical intimacy occurs before the person goes back to the initiation stage. This has how relationships have evolved for our time.

After their break-up, Tom was in the slumps and tried ways to win her back yet was returned with excuses from Summer. Then they bumped into each other at a wedding, where he picked up the wrong signals due to his wishful thinking. He was invited to a party at her place, which contradicted his expectations. It was her engagement party.

Summer was about to get married, to someone else, in the span of less than a year.

Her reason was that she felt like it, and she believes that timing and fate is crucial, which brought her and her husband together. Tom, on the other hand, thanks to Summer, is the one who views romance cynically now. Which is the opposite from the beginning. Tom was
optimistically waiting for the one who will change his life, while Summer did not believe in that, which can be seen her from previous short relationships.

Moreover, Summer seems to be a spontaneous person. Who does things, such as moving into a new place, out of boredom, or for fun. She also repeatedly said that Tom was fun to be with.

We hardly know of her friends. Summer is the one who's frivoulous and carefree and spontaneous, but Tom likes to be assured and in the comfort zone of things.

End of the day, we see Summer settling down instead. But her reason was that she just felt like it.

From




These few shots were played in the starting of the film, which a narration which says,"This is not a love story." However, most of my friends chose to believe otherwise. They thought it would be a happy ending despite the narration, also the photos misleaded their perception. This is because most of us choose to believe that things will work out as we wish the relationship in our lives to be the same.
However, that scene takes place when Summer told Tom that it was him, who helped her view love in a different perspective.

I personally feel that feelings play the most crucial role. With feelings, one can overcome alot of flaws, be it materialistic or superficial ones. Feelings make you more patient and more receptive to the other party. The whole rush of feelings can make a mundane routine feel so out of this world, when two are together. The downside, however, is that.. feelings are so unpredictable. What you used to do together, you detest doing it now. It simply feels like a drag even though it spelled so much fun before. You gain feelings one day, so easily just like that, and the next day you can wake up and realise they're gone. Poof. Vanish. Just like that. I guess that's the beauty of falling in love, its unpredictability.

This is what The Killers sang:
I said my heart, it don’t beat, it don’t beat the way it used to
And my eyes don’t recognize you no more.
And my lips, they don’t kiss, they don’t kiss the way they used to,
And my eyes don’t recognize you no more.
For reasons unknown