500 Days Of Summer

   

         The film, 500 Days Of Summer, is an incredibly creative and genuine story of a boy chasing a girl, expertly directed by Marc Webb.  Through a combination of flashbacks and linear story telling, Webb creates a magical tale of love, loss, and heartbreak.  It is a story that almost everyone can relate too as at one time or another we all have experienced rejection.  The film progresses between a mix of good and bad memories, of times of joy and times of sadness.  Tom is certain that Summer is the girl for him, the one he wants to spend the rest of his life with, but she is less than sure.  Throughout the length of the film Tom tries to convince Summer, as well as himself, that they are meant to be together, and goes all but mad when life doesn’t turn out as such.  They stop seeing each other and when chance brings them back together on a train, Tom believes his dream will finally come true, only to find out that Summer is now engaged.  Tom believes that all is lost, until one day he meets another girl, Autumn. 

          Marc Webb does a fabulous job creating such a detailed and realistic film.  He brings the audience deep under Tom’s skin, and only the coldest of hearts would struggle to find sympathy for the man trying to get his dream girl.  This film is less about plot and more about character development.  Webb brings the characters out of the screen and into the real world of the audience, or vise versa.  Tom and Summer are not just characters through which the plot is propelled, but rather take on the roll of the plot themselves.   They do not just act out the story, but instead become the story. The decision of a non-chorological order to the story line keeps the audience intrigued and confused, much like that of the confusion that Tom feels relating to his relationship with Summer.  The film is a unique perspective into the emotions and thinking of young adults, who often have a hard time speaking what is on their mind. 

          I enjoyed this film very much.  I found it to be very relatable, as I feel safe to say that we’ve all experienced the pain of rejection.  Though the story is not new, I enjoyed the way in which it was presented.  From the beginning of the movie, we know that Tom’s relationship with Summer will not end well, as it is already given an expiration date of five hundred days.  As someone who is very plot conscious with regards to movie watching, I was happy that Webb was able to create a structure just as complicated as the relationship that unfurls on the screen.  I was also very much happily surprised when Tom meets a new girl at the end of the film, her name of course is Autumn and this starts day one.  We don’t know if this is the girl Tom will marry, but the audience is left with a sense of hope.