One of the most common guilty pleasures of mine is cuddling up in bed and watching a cheesy rom-com. From To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before to When Harry Met Sally, rom-coms have been a staple for feeling that happy connection love brings, whether you’re already in a relationship or happily single.
However, there is one rom-com that has fought years of debate because love is such an amazing yet complicated feeling: 500 Days of Summer.
What is 500 Days of Summer?
500 Days of Summer is a romantic comedy following the story of Tom and Summer, two coworkers who ultimately get into a “fling” after meeting each other in an elevator. Summer is a woman of many quirks, one of them being that she simply does not believe in the concept of love. Tom, on the other hand, is completely obsessed with the idea of love and yearns for it throughout the whole movie.
After receiving a compliment on his music taste by Summer, Tom is smitten with her. The two end up interacting more in the office and ultimately get into an unofficial relationship filled with dates to IKEA and record stores. Over 500 days, Tom falls madly in love with her while Summer feels indifferent with him. She even calls him her “best friend” before calling the fling off.
The film is always brought up on the internet because of its depiction of a love story. In fact, the narrator starts the film off by saying “This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.” Unlike most romcoms, 500 Days of Summer does not end with Tom and Summer getting into a relationship despite them following the formula of a “traditional” love story. Just like every other romantic novel or movie, Tom and Summer had a meet-cute, bonded over silly interests, and ended up almost getting together.
But at the end, the unexpected happens; they both drift away from each other and find new people. Summer ultimately gets married despite saying she wasn’t looking for love, and Tom meets a woman named Autumn (ironic, right?).
So now that you know the basic gist of 500 Days of Summer, it’s time to answer the question of who was right: Summer or Tom?
Tom’s Position
Tom is the ultimate hopeless romantic. At the beginning of the film, it was stated that ever since Tom was a teenager, he’s been wanting to find the love of his life. Tom had centered his happiness and life around trying to find “the one,” and this can especially be seen when Tom and Summer were talking about whether true love exists. This is normal human behavior. At some point in time, everybody has yearned for love the way Tom does. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be with someone, especially with someone that you think is “the one.” That is what makes it so easy to sympathize with Tom. It’s incredibly hard to see red flags in situations like this if you constantly see love through “rose-colored glasses.” The film does an excellent job portraying this side of yearning through Tom’s perspective. Although some may see Tom as delusional, his side is incredibly realistic and all his impulsive decisions made sense to his beliefs.
In addition to Tom’s feelings, some could also argue that Summer’s behavior was completely in the wrong as well. Through Tom’s perspective, it seemed that Summer constantly tried to continue the relationship even after telling him she didn’t want to date him anymore. One of the biggest examples of this was when Summer kissed Tom in the printer room despite telling him she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend the night before. Summer even travelled through the rain to apologize to him after a huge argument, which is something that requires an incredible amount of love and care to do. If this happened to me, I’d be just as confused as Tom!
Summer’s Position
At the start of the movie, Summer tells Tom right away that she wasn’t looking for anything “official” and she didn’t believe in the idea of love. With this in mind, it’s very easy to defend her. The nicest thing to do in this situation is to respect Summer’s opinions and find another girl. But with Tom, this was never the case. He was very persistent with Summer and continued to try to be with her throughout the entire movie. Tom treated their relationship like a real relationship even though Summer never established that it was. Every relationship has two sides to it, so it’s unfair that Tom constantly kept pushing Summer’s boundaries after telling him she never wanted anything serious in the first place. Tom even yelled at her at some points in the movie, which further proves the imbalance and toxicity in their relationship.
When going back to the opening scenes about Tom and Summer’s childhoods, it was mentioned that Summer never believed in love because of her parents’ divorce. Because of this, she was never looking for true love the way Tom was. This also created an imbalance in effort between them. Tom was always trying to keep up with the relationship while Summer wasn’t trying at all. I don’t believe it was because she didn’t care about Tom; it was just that she didn’t have the same beliefs as him. Additionally, Tom always put Summer on a pedestal by constantly talking to her friends about her and surrounding his life around her. Summer never asked to be put to such high standards; Tom did all of that himself.
So…Who’s At Fault?
Realistically, nobody is at fault in this movie. That is why it has gained so much notoriety and popularity. 500 Days of Summer is a reflection of modern-day love where nobody has to be at fault for a relationship to end. Sometimes, people were never compatible in the first place but their time together was necessary to realize that.
Tom’s side could be flipped between him simply following what he wanted or him constantly pushing boundaries. Summer’s side could be flipped between her not quite knowing what she wants yet and her simply leading Tom on because she was bored.
500 Days of Summer offers a perspective from all sides of love, and that is what makes it such a frustrating, yet beautiful movie. Ultimately, it’s truly up to the viewer and how they portray love to find out who really was in the wrong.