500 days of summer pt.2
Continuing…
The overall themes I
saw throughout the movie were love, the unreliability of human emotion, the
overall unreliable world, the idea of conformity and the dangers of it. There
are also many homages as well.
The first theme is the
theme of love. This one is pretty obvious because that’s the genre of the film.
The movie opens up with a denouncement of love to the director’s former love,
which kind of goes with the idea not necessarily of pro love, but anti-love.
This movie is really an exhibit showing the different forms of love. The movie
does a good job of showing the love between the man and his friends, their
experiences and mishaps. Then we are shown the love Tom’s boss has for the
company in holding meetings and being worried for his employees. We are shown
the physical aspect of love in the alluding to sexual intercourse as the two
characters laid in bed talking the morning after. That’s just the idea this
movie puts in your head. The idea that love, memory, and overall emotion is
more than just the use of dead words or dead actions, and that’s what really
separates this movie from all other romances.
Another theme is the
vulnerability of human emotion. We know Summer at first doesn’t believe in
human emotion, but Tom can’t help but have feelings for her. The movie does a
great job of showing how hopeless Tom can be with romance, even from youth. I
mean, the guy watched The Graduate as a boy so what do you expect! Tom just
falls head over heels for this Summer chick at such a fast pace, the film
directly shows how much of a loser this guy kind of was at the beginning of the
film. As for Summer, she may seem like a rock hard person from the outside, but
as the film progresses we are revealed the true defenselessness of her feelings
because she isn’t willing to show her true opinion on things. She’s very closed
off from the rest of the society. It’s very interesting to see.
The last theme that was
very evident throughout the film was the idea of conformity and the overall
dangers of it. Summer is given a taste to what conformity brings to all that explore
the concept, and that is the sort of false hope that ties into being one. Conformity
is a process by which a person’s attitudes and beliefs become influenced by
other people. It can be something that happens quite openly like peer pressure
or it can be a more subtle influence that takes place over a number of years.
The result is that you end up behaving like everybody else. That is why it is
called being a sheep most of the time. Summer throws logic out the window. She leaves
Tom because of her rebellious attitude, but because she was exposed to Tom’s
original conformism, she winded up looking for someone else because Tom was out
of the picture. Tom, on the other hand, became an anti-conformist after his
relationship with Summer. The tables turned, and when we find out about Summer’s
engagement and eventual wedding, we the audience cannot help but feel bad for
Tom. Tom has now become this shell that Summer once was, until the end. We see
that Tom starts once again with a woman, inviting her for a cup of coffee. The cycle
starts again.
In terms of what I liked
about this film, I liked the camera work, the narration added to both the drama
and the comedy. My favorite scene is probably the one where they put reality
and the fantasy side by side, I thought that was a stroke of pure genius and
innovation. I loved the fact that they put a lot of “The Graduate” references. They
added to the themes in the film. I highly recommend this film to anyone looking
for more than a cliché romantic comedy.
I give this film a
strong 8.8/10
IF YOU WANT TO SUGGEST
A FILM FOR ME TO WATCH AND TALK ABOUT, LEAVE IT IN THE COMMENTS OR E-MAIL ME.
SORRY FOR THE WAIT.
P.E.N.T.C.I.
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