Ode to Summer

Today, I went all the way to KLCC at 10.30am to catch (500) Days of Summer with KhaiSim. BTW, thanks loads KhaiSim for inviting me along to catch this movie. I love it soooo much. The cinema was practically empty.

The weird part of this movie is that the events in the movie are not shown chronically. Instead, it jumps around the 500 days when Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) was in love with Summer (Zooey Deschanel). Sure, it would require slightly more attention to keep track with what's happening, but it's not that bad because it goes from present time when Tom is broken up over Summer, and back to a flashback where we see how Tom falls for Summer and that continues on till it catches up to the current timeline. Gosh. That DOES sound confusing. But it's not, really. I think the point of this time traveling is to paint a sharper contrast of the before and after.

"This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know upfront, this is not a love story."

So the movie opens with a mildly destructive Tom smashing plates one by one in a rather catatonic state in his kitchen. Naturally, his guy friends freak out and call his little sister, Rachel (Chloe Moretz) who seems to know a lot about women and their emotional highs and lows for such a young kid. He tells his friends and Rachel that he does not want to get over Summer, but he wants her back.

He begins to recount how he met her. It started out with Summer being Tom's boss' assistant. Although Tom was attracted to her, he decided that she would not be worth his time based on the gossip fed to him by McKenzie, his friend and also co-worker. However, after learning that Summer is also into The Smiths, he becomes convinced that she is "the one". McKenzie took pity on Tom's pathetic attempts to try to get close to Summer and organizes a karaoke night which the whole office, including Summer, is attending.

A tipsy McKenzie asked Summer about her views on love, to which Summer said that love isn't real. Ever the optimist, Tom argued that it is. Finally, they agreed to disagree. McKenzie drank even more and becomes so drunk that Summer and Tom had to help him get into a cab. McKenzie then spilled the beans to Summer, telling her that Tom likes her. Tom denied it at first, then eventually admitted that he does, but only "as friends". Summer's response? "Very interesting."

Eventually though, they start spending a lot of time together and Summer's walls slowly came down as she opened up to Tom. We learn about Summer's past, and also why Tom, who studied to be an architect instead becomes a greeting card writer at Card Company. One scene I find really funny is how they emulated a married couple while using the furniture on display at Ikea (IKEA!!) as props. It was at this point in the story when Summer made it clear to Tom that all she wanted is a casual relationship. However, Tom tried to convince himself that that's all he wants too when it's so clear that he thinks that they could be more. Summer then seduced the poor guy by lying down on his bed sans clothes and offering herself to him. This is what I call "mind fucking". Girls are excellent at it.

The next day, Tom wakes up on top of the world. And in a weird but delightful twist, the movie draws from Disney movie Enchanted with some synchronized dancing in a park. A little out of place, but very enjoyable.

However, bit by bit, Summer began distancing herself from Tom. Things are starting to go downhill and eventually got to the point where Tom got into a small fight with a random guy in a bar over Summer. Summer got pissed off at Tom and told him that he does not need get into fights over her because, after all, they are "just friends". This made Tom very very mad because he thinks that everything that they have done (hanging out all the time, swapping stories, shower sex etc) proved that they are, indeed, in a relationship. Tom left Summer in a huff but finds her on his doorstep later, where they kissed and made up. After a couple of weeks of strained happiness, Summer goes on to break up with Tom over pancakes.

A couple of months later, he bumped into Summer again on the way to a coworker's wedding.

They had a nice weekend together, and Summer invites him to a party she's hosting. Tom builds up his hopes, only to have them dashed when he finds out that the party he's at was Summer's engagement party. Heartbroken, he became a social recluse for five days, hanging out only with alcohol and Twinkies. How very pathetic.

He finally pulled himself together and got to work, just in time for the office's weekly presentation. After sitting quietly for a while, Tom came to the conclusion that everything he believed about love, fate and relationships was wrong, and that all the Card Company does is create lies for their customers to put into their mouths. He then proceeded to quit his job.

Tom fell into depression again, but slowly snapped out of it when, under the coaching of Rachel, he recalled the bad moments he's had with Summer. Tom found a new perspective and started to actively pursue his architecture dream. However, after getting shot down by like a million of them, an even more depressed Tom went off to his favourite hang out spot and bumped into Summer there. They have some sort of closure, and Tom realized that he has to let go of Summer and get on with his life.

Aaaaaand then at a job interview, he met a girl named Autumn. Oh all names.

I really like this movie, I do. I think it's one of the best rom-com movies to hit our shores this year. I mean, based purely on entertainment purposes, The Proposal was much funnier, but in a slapstick way. (500) dished out their humor in a more quiet, satirical way. There are some laugh out loud moments (where, again, I was the only one laughing WTF), but those are far and few between. Most of their humor makes the audience work to get it. Maybe that's why no one laughed. HAH!

Aside from that, one thing I loved about this movie is that it portrays love in such a realistic light. I mean, come on! How many of us would end up falling in love with someone who we initially hated? It's like, the minority. Like what Justin Long said in He's Just Not That Into You, we would like to believe that these things do happen, no matter how rare, but you are not the exception.

But this movie... It shows the reality of love. How it's not easy, how it's so hard to get over someone, how women play men, how women can be evil conniving bitches, how thin the line between love and hate can be. That's how love is! It's not all giggles and roses. I guess maybe I like this movie so much is partly because it does not try to mince what it's trying to say, and that losing someone you love sucks but eventually you'll get better.

And that, no matter what, having a 20-20 hindsight helps a lot. Seeing a person's flaws amidst the good qualities that they have makes them more real, and instead of putting them on a pedestal and idolizing them, seeing them as human somehow makes it all better. I don't know, that's what I think. And I love how they don't slap on a tonne of makeup to try to make their actors look perfect. It's such a real movie. Like, this could be happening to you, or maybe your next door neighbor. I dunno..

I guess the point of the story is that while it's fine to believe in fate and love, we shouldn't have our heads in the clouds all the time. Reality interferes, the other person might not love you as much as you love them. I also think what Summer said about coincidence and the way people think about love being a more pivotal role in our lives. I've always had that school of thought, instead of the whole destiny thing. It's always decisions and coincidence that sets us on a certain path in life. But who's to say that fate doesn't exist? Maybe the people who believe in God would say yeah, fate and destiny exists. But for me, I think that we all make decisions through a series of thoughts, and when those decisions cross paths with someone else', it's just a coincidence. What we do after that, again, relies on the individual's personality and perspectives, which falls under the school of thought.

Do I make sense? Oh, and the soundtrack is fucking awesome. How often do we get indie music in a mainstream movie? Wait, is this an indie movie? Because if it is, it would explain a lot.

All in all, I would give this movie a 4.5/5, because although Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Tom) tries to be all adorable like Paul Rudd, he fails. Paul Rudd is the king of dorky cute guys. Yeah, that was just a stupid excuse not to give it a 5/5 because, I dunno, no one's perfect. Even though this one came pretty damn close.