“500 Days of Summer” — Romantic Fatalism and the Search for Completeness in Love
Just as Tom (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) decided to give Summer (played by Zooey Deschanel) “The Architecture of Happiness” by Alain de Botton as a gift at her engagement party, the filmmakers seem to be paying homage to de Botton as 500 Days of Summer is constructed in a similar manner to “Essays in Love”.
As reflected by the film’s tagline — “This is not a love story. This is a story about love” — the film illustrates the journey of how two people, Tom and Summer, fall in and out of love. Like a coming-of-age movie, 500 Days of Summer shows how the main characters converge, diverge, lead parallel lives, adopt new values on love and life during the numbered days of their relationship.
500 Days of Summer is centered upon Tom’s thoughts and actions. From the very beginning of the film, the audience is given the impression that Tom is a hopeless romantic. He believes that the source of happiness and meaning in life comes from finding his true love. In a city with 400,000 offices, 91,000 commercial buildings, and a population of 3.8 million people, Tom believes that fate is the only possible explanation as to why he met Summer.
This coincides with de Botton’s idea of Romantic Fatalism[1] which refers to how the act of falling in love is entrapped by fatalistic perceptions of romance, where coincidences are seen as inevitable and chance is veiled by meaningful purposes. This reveals a fundamental inconsistency in the modern world: although people yearn for individual autonomy and freedom of choice, they still want to believe that love, a major component in life, is predetermined. Such belief is reinforced by the act of carefully selecting enticing similarities between them which provide seemingly indisputable evidence for why they are meant to be.
For example, when Tom finds out that Summer is also a fan of The Smiths, he immediately took it as a sign that she is the other half which was severed from him by Zeus’ cruel bolt[2] (191d, Cooksey). Irving Singer’s theory on Appraisal and Bestowal fits into the picture and provides a possible explanation for Tom’s love for Summer as a scheme of value selection. Appraisal normally refers to the instinctual appealingness, a measure of beauty that arouses the lover’s initial interest. This could be seen from the way Tom was first induced by the ‘Summer effect’.
Knowing that mere appraisal is insufficient to sustain the relationship, Tom also subtly bestows other values upon her, for example, by seeing Summer as the perfect match for him, and simply put, she could be none other than his true love.
This romanticism is also followed by an attempt to create their own lover’s world at IKEA through a series of wild imaginations in planning a future together. Yet, this form of bestowal is nonetheless insufficient to explain Tom’s exclusivity for Summer. This blinding belief that she is ‘the one’ might on the other hand be seen as a form of sexual overvaluation or idealization in Freud’s terms (Pines, 133). As the story is mainly told from Tom’s perspective, the audience does not really know who Summer is apart from how she is seen through Tom’s eyes.
During the process of finding similarities between him and Summer, it could be argued that Tom has all along been projecting his ego onto Summer as a form of delusional obsession, and that he was only loving a division of himself. Despite Tom’s strong belief that Summer is the other half separated from him as in Aristophanes’ analogy, he has been purposefully (or negligently) ignoring the false notes dropped along the way. For example, a divergence in opinions surfaced on Day 295— where Tom expressed his utter dislike for tattoos, Summer responded by saying she wants to get one of them. Or during the scene where Tom got into a fight with one of Summer’s admirers at the bar thinking he did that for her benefit and was being chivalric, Summer was appalled and derided it as “completely uncool”.
Tom’s insistence on handpicking signs which imply compatibility[3] as a means to justify the soundness of their relationship echoes his selectivity of memories after their breakup, which was a potent cause of his distress as the reality as fallen short of his expectations. Whilst Tom is clinging onto the past and trying to decode what went wrong, his sister comes along to pop the bubble, by saying to him “you’re only remembering the good stuff”.
Such selectivity might provide a reason for the failure of their relationship. As argued by Armstrong, compatibility is insufficient in fueling a relationship for it could never be satisfied. Compatibility should be seen as an achievement rather than a prerequisite of love (Armstrong, 36) whereas Tom used compatibility as a criteria for selection and affirmation.
Tom’s romanticism is also tainted by a sense of tragedy, foreshadowed by Summer’s casual comment on his resemblance with Young Werther. “The Sorrows of Young Werther” is a story about passion and authentic love. Like Werther, Tom has fallen in love at first sight and believed that his unrequited love would ultimately change the verdict. Yet, just as Werther did not end up with Charlotte, neither would Tom with Summer.
This is also forbade by the bench scene on Day 95. Whilst Tom was drawing the city skyline on Summer’s forearm, the fact that Summer noted its resemblance to a tattoo when it was really just ink, suggests that love or passion would not share the same qualities of permanence as that of tattoos. This idea is echoed by the scene of Tom running away from Summer’s engagement party and walking into a pencil sketched skyline which is slowly being erased. The movie has therefore successfully created a vivid image of Tom as a hopeless romantic, like Werther, who strongly believes in the existence of true love and that love is no more than a product of inevitability and predetermination.
Throughout the movie, the audience is not presented with a complete picture of who Summer is apart from what has been projected through Tom’s eyes. This lack of knowledge justifies the portrayal of Summer as a mysterious character, and such clues have been subtly placed throughout the movie. On Day 109, when Tom finally had the chance to visit Summer’s apartment, a bowler hat and a green apple were placed on the coffee table, alluding to Magritte’s famous painting “The Son of Man”[4].
By placing the motifs taken from this famous surrealist painting in Summer’s world adds to her enigmatic quality. Tom’s curiosity and desire to understand her is thus no different from the ordinary viewer’s wish to see the face hidden behind the green apple. Nevertheless, the audience is given the impression that Summer is the opposite of Tom, and from an omniscient point of view, the audience would have to reluctantly acknowledge that Summer is not Tom’s perfect half.
Bluntly stated in the beginning of the movie, Summer does not share the same beliefs with Tom. Her values were shaped by her childhood and memories of her parents’ divorce. She had also professed her beliefs on Day 28 that she wants to be independent and sees relationships as a mess that will most likely end up in divorce. Simply put, Summer does not believe in love.
Whenever Tom tries to make advances, Summer would make it clear by repeatedly stating her intention to just be friends and wants nothing serious. Summer also seems to be casual about the passing of relationships and does not believe in fatalism. On Day 259 when Tom asks about her previous relationships, she replied in nonchalance, saying that breakups are just what always happens. Whilst Tom places the need to find a perfect half on a pedestal, Summer sees love as nothing of unique importance. Such dichotomy in values is also reflected in a scene where Tom said that he needs certainties but Summer refused to make promises. Summer’s default beliefs provide an alternate perspective into understanding the mechanics of falling and being in love.
The structure and other techniques adopted in the 500 Days of Summer appear to resonate with our understanding of love. The use of color in this movie does not only reflect the character’s mental state. It also takes on a more symbolic role in addressing the characters’ beliefs in love, which further highlights the incompatibility between Tom and Summer.
Tom is often dressed in brown in the movie — even his surroundings, for example, his workspace, is donned in beige or other dull colors. Summer on the other hand, like the summer sky, is often dressed in blue, and even her apartment is lined with blue wallpaper. The contrast of colors subtly suggests that Tom and Summer are from different worlds since brown and blue are almost complementary colors on the color wheel.
Despite Tom’s constant attempts to become part of her world, he could never really fit into her blue sanctum. For example, on Day 34, after having had the chance to stay at Summer’s place and thinking that this is a sign of confirmation, Tom walks down the street radiating in happiness, with dancers dressed in blue celebrating this feat with him. However, Tom is still dressed in brown — suggesting that such fundamental differences between the two people cannot be resolved. The movie may seem to have undermined Aristophanes’ account on love by showing the repeated failed attempts of two people ‘reuniting’ with their other halves, it nevertheless reaffirms its significance towards the end of the film.
Tom’s decision to finally pursue his dream in architecture allows him to reunite with his shade of color. Not only is the interior of the waiting room for the job interview paneled with dark planks, he met Autumn who is dressed in the color of fallen leaves. Tom has thus found the completeness he longed for, and the movie concludes by resetting the cycle back to Day 1. Color therefore plays an important role in the movie. It is used to further elaborate on the dichotomy between Tom and Summer and to reinforce the ‘other half’ analogy as the backbone of the love story.
Numbered days are used in the movie to show the different chapters of Tom and Summer’s relationship. They operate as a cycle: with Day 1 signifying the beginning of a relationship, and terminates once the ends of the cycle meet. Yet the termination of one cycle does not preclude another one from emerging. This cyclical structure mirrors the idea of fatalism where the story begins with inescapable romantic fatalism, and the death of the relationship results in another fatalistic act. Between Days 440 and 442, Tom’s blatant rejection of optimism and dislike for everyone else seems to suggest that when something disastrous in love happens, people tend to venture beyond simple causal explanations with the hope to understand why were they picked upon to suffer such torturous punishment as if it was an Oedipus’ curse — which mirrors Tom’s initial thoughts on why was he the lucky one chosen to be awarded with the gift of meeting Summer among the vast sea of people, and thereby refused to believe there was no mastermind behind the setup. This technique in mirroring the cyclical nature of love therefore conveys an important message: love is a series of fatalistic encounters.
500 Days of Summer also places a lot of emphasis on contrasts — may it be the differences in expectations and reality, or by placing two different numbered days in the same sequence to show how time dilutes love and changes people. Some of the more notable contrasts include that of Day 282 and 34, where Summer is no longer interested in playing family at IKEA; or Day 450 and 87, where Tom holding a disc featuring Ringo Starr fails to put a smile on Summer’s face; or where the same neutral features of Summer used to evoke intense love on Day 154 but utter disdain on Day 322.
The iconic scene where Tom’s trip to Summer’s engagement party is delivered using split-screens heightens the gap between expectations vs reality, and goes back to Freud’s point on idealization where the key to keeping a relationship or love afloat requires an element of imagination.
Towards the end of the movie, another contrast is shown, but this time it concerns changes in the character’s attitude and beliefs as time progressed. Summer who originally refused to believe in love married a man whom she met at a café, thinking they are “meant to be”. Tom on the other hand had quit his job, questioned his original beliefs on romantic love and concluded that the archetypes on destiny and true love propagated by popular culture are nothing but meaningless words.
As Summer has compared Tom to Young Werther, it might be interesting to consider how different the story would have been if Tom were to trace the footsteps of Werther and commit suicide after the iconic scene of him running away from Summer’s party knowing that his unrequited love was meaningless, instead of recovering from his lethargic state prior to his meeting with Autumn. Several allusions to death have appeared in the film, for example, the analogy of Summer as Sid Vicious from Sex Pistols and Tom as Nancy Spungen, who was alleged to have been murdered by Sid, and hence such imaginations pertaining to altering the course of the movie by inserting the possibility of suicide would not seem too abrupt.
Many European classics have been affected by the Western love traditions of chivalric romance and courtly love, from Tristan and Iseult, Romeo and Juliet, to “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, they have all seemed to regard unfulfilled love which is tainted by death to be the most romantic form of love. Hence, if the same formula is to apply to 500 Days of Summer, would it appeal to the audience as a romantic alternative to the original ending, or if it does not, what does it say about the shift in attitude towards modern-day romance?
As exclaimed by Tom on Day 259, Summer seems to be the only one who has the say in their relationship. Faced with the slow deterioration of their love, one of the ways in which Tom could regain a degree of control might be to commit suicide, as in the case of Young Werther. The suicide model seems to accord with the expectations in love and exists as a form of romantic terrorism[5] — hoping that the beloved would care enough to halt the death of love. The ‘pleasure’ in committing suicide is derived from seeing how the beloved would react to it, but paradoxically, this pleasure is unfulfilled since death forbids the lover from witnessing it (de Botton, 187).
This proposed alteration, therefore, highlights the shift in attitude towards love in the modern era by negating the traditional acts of romance from a Western classical perspective, as the modern audience might no longer sees the inevitability of death as a requirement for higher romance.
500 Days of Summer is a love story wrapped with philosophical speculations on love, and it is quintessentially a story about how people fall in and fall out of love. With fatalism serving as the main axis of the movie, it shows how Tom and Summer spin around it, find their respective ‘perfect halves’, discover their beliefs in love and carry it forward to their new relationships. It also allows the audience to reflect on their personal values and perspectives on modern love, to experience the ups and downs in love by seeing through his eyes. The ending also seems to serve as an optimistic note and going back to Aristophanes, that people would ultimately find their own perfect halves. Echoing the ideas of Erich Fromm, Tom and Summer’s new relationships also serve as a reminder that love is both a lesson and an art to be learnt.
Footnotes
[1] de Botton, Alain. “Romantic Fatalism.” Essays in Love. London: Picador, 2006. 1–10. Print
[2] Aristophanes’ speech in Symposium, 189c — 193e
[3] Armstrong, John. “The Perfect Union.” Conditions of love: The philosophy of intimacy. New York: W.W. Norton &., 2003. 32–40. Print
[4] The Son of Man by René Magritte (1964)
[5] De Botton, Alain. “Romantic Terrorism.” Essays in Love. London: Picador, 2006. 154–164. Print
Bibliography
Armstrong, J. (2003). Conditions of love : The philosophy of intimacy / John Armstrong (1st American ed.). New York: W.W. Norton &.
Cooksey, Thomas L., and Ebrary, Inc. Plato’s Symposium [electronic Resource] : A Reader’s Guide / Thomas L. Cooksey (2010). Web.
De Botton, Alain. Essays in Love. London: Picador, 2006. Print
Pines, Ayala Malach. “The Son Falls in Love with “Mother”, the Daughter with “Father”” in Falling in Love, 2nd Edition (New York: Routledge, 2005), p.123–141.
Singer, Irving. Philosophy of Love : A Partial Summing-up / Irving Singer. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 2009. Print. Singer, Irving. Irving Singer Library.
