500 Days of Summer is one hell of a movie. Told in a non-chronological manner, the movie had come out in 2009 but didn't do well when it was released, but in the subsequent times, it went on to become a sleeper hit and favourite of many. I am one of those.
500 Days of Summer tells the itchy story of Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) and Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who shares an offbeat love between them that not many movies tries to portray.
Tom Hansen is a man who believes in ‘the one’ and has a romantic view of life. He believes in destiny and happy endings. He studied architect but had to work in a greeting card company because he couldn’t break in as an architect. But we see, he is quite good in writing messages and has been doing fine.
Summer, on the other hand, is a woman who has a practical view of life and has perspectives contrary to Tom’s. She doesn’t believe in ‘the one’ or destiny. She doesn’t feel an emotional attachment to anything or anyone. She is rather willful and the movie beautifully shows us her lack of emotions when at the beginning of the movie a voice-over says introducing her to the viewers: “..she'd only loved two things. The first was her long blonde hair… The second was how easily she could cut it off... And feel nothing.” And we see teenage Summer stares at her hair in the mirror and then starts cutting them off with scissors.
They meet each other in Tom’s office when she takes over as the new administrative assistant. Seeing her, Tom instantly knows, she is the one. Of course, Summer felt nothing.
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In the later days, Tom learns that they both liked similar things that convince him more that there is no way that she wasn’t the one.
If you haven’t seen the movie yet, please do. There are many scenes in this movie that teaches us many life lessons, and there are many posts written about the life lessons the movie teaches, but in this post, I am going to portray the lessons we can take from the last scene of the movie in which Tom is seen sitting on a bench which happens to be his favorite place of the city when Summer appears and calls him from behind.
The scene really moved me.
At the beginning of the scene, we see Summer calling out Tom who is sitting on his favourite spot on a bench in a park. Tom tries to say a 'congratulations' as Summer had got married, but she asks him to do that only if he means it, to which he says, 'in that case...' and stops. He is not okay with it but has learnt that life goes on and he will be all right eventually.
Lesson 1: Life goes on. No matter what happens and whoever leaves you. Life goes on and you become all right eventually. It may seem hard and impossible for a while, but every pain fades one day.
Lesson 2: Sometimes you should tell exactly how you feel about others. It might be hard, but you should. Sure it might hurt people, but you will receive solace and healing. Here not congratulating Summer for her marriage, he has helped himself to come out of his aches a little.
Summer comes and sits near him on the bench and they start talking.
Tom asks her why she had danced with him when she already had someone in her life, referring to the wedding of a colleague they had attended sometimes back before her marriage.
At this, she simply says that because she wanted to. Her reply is so careless and obvious that we instantly feel broken for Tom because to him, it meant so much more. He couldn’t believe it. He murmurs sadly, with a smile…. “You just do what you want, don’t you?”
Lesson 3: Some people just do what they want. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are doing it for you. They do it for their happiness and it doesn’t matter to them whether their action breaks you or not.
Lesson 4: It also teaches us that one expectation doesn't always align with the reality.
Tom then asks her what changed that the girl who didn’t want to be someone’s girlfriend is now someone’s wife and she tells him that she woke up one morning and she just knew what she wasn’t sure with Tom ever.
Tom looks away to hide his eyes at her reply, because he loved her with all his soul and dreams of growing old with her. He couldn’t just bear her answer.
He looks at her after a pause and expresses that it sucks to realize that everything you believed in like soulmates and true love and destiny are completely nonsense.
Lesson 5: The scene teaches us that fate doesn't exist, and so is the case with the one. Though it sucks to realize that our dear beliefs are complete absurd sometimes, we need to realize the fact. Tom has learnt it the hard way and life is more simple and solved now as everything depends on our perspective.
But Summer tells him that his beliefs are actually maybe correct. She didn't believe in them but she now believes in destiny and explains that if that day she had gone somewhere else or reached that spot 10 minutes later, she would not have met her husband. It was meant to be. Tom was always right. It was just her that he wasn't right about.
Lesson 6: People change. Summer changed Tom and made him a realist while Tom changed Summer and made her an optimist. People change. Permanence is a myth.
Lesson 7: We become what happens to us. We are the products of the situations we have been in and not how we are born. Nobody is born great or loser. It is to do where we were and how we reacted when life hit us hard.
I find this a very real scene and actually makes sense. Tom, though he knew he would never get Summer despite all his love, still chooses to care for her and we know this when after the end of this scene in the park he stands up to call Summer, who has started to walk away, and says that he hopes she is happy.
Lesson 8: Love is when you really care for someone even when you know you cannot be part of their life. If her leaving your life angers you, you never really loved her. Tom is in love with Summer despite of everything she did to him.
God, that's a whole lot of lessons!