500 Days of Summer

Circa November 2009: Last week, someone special left his office at 6:45 in the evening, picked up something at Megamall, and ran to Starbucks Podium and met me with a single red rose on his hands and two movie tickets. I actually thought he wouldn’t come, but he was there—huffing and puffing—and asked me “Would you like to watch 500 Days of Summer with me?” Just proves how I could be wrong about most people. All it took was a leap of faith.  Now, enough talk about my love life.Let’s talk about the movie.

Review

As a general rule, I hate predictable movies; the type where you could almost see the ending the moment the film starts. Take Katherine Heigl and James Marsden’s 27 Dresses. Ten minutes into the movie and you could bet your new Maserati who will end up with whom (and why). That is one no-brainer chick flick.
If you’ve seen the trailer, 500 Days of Summer isn’t something you’d actually swoon over. Aside from the what’s-his-name-again actor and that’s-the-weird-girl-in-Yes!Man actress, the story is set in a time and place our generation could hardly recognize. As for me, who have seen the UK website first, well, you could say that digital media has a big effect on me.

Plot

And yes, we all know how it starts. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t.What?! Common, sure, and it’s probably the story of every broken-hearted male out there. Still, it’s pretty unlikely plot for a film. In movies, it’s always the blonde cheerleader getting the jock with the fake 6pack, or the cosmotized ugly betty who realizes that her nerdy male best buddy is actually hot. And in most tearjerkers, the Mandy Moores of Hollywood always dies in the end.Boys hate commitments. Girls love romance.But what if it’s the other way around? Take the case of “perfectly adequate Hansen.” He met the vibrant Summer Finn and from Day 1 developed an intense liking, bordering on stalking as the days progressed. Tom was an avid believer in fate and true love. Summer wanted no part of the crap.
During one of their karaoke sessions, their common friend did the liberty of hanging Tom by the neck. When Summer pressed on the issue, Tom chickened out and admitted to liking her only as a friend. Dimwitted beta male.  Of course, Hansen was already head over heels in love with Summer long before that. And the rest is history.

The Conflict

“She’s a dude!”What do you get when you come across a highly independent, super detached, vibrant, alpha female? Heartbreak.

I’ve heard and seen this kind of set-up: a non-relationship relationship; a non-couple couple; no commitment companionship; a rocking winding; the Gray Area. It’s the type of relationship that makes you ask yourself every day “kami na ba or what?”

Maybe she’s been through a lot of relationships that just didn’t work out, or back-to-back heartbreaks that just won’t heal. Or maybe she’s just plain evil. But I feel for Summer. Sometimes, we come across people who are capable of giving us so much love, the type that most people would kill for, but we don’t want any part of it. Why? Because there’s something missing.

And then we ask ourselves, what are we looking for? What the hell is it that we’re waiting for? The spark, the wit, the adventure—the one that could make you keep falling even after you’ve fallen; the one that could keep you up till four in the morning in front of your PC chatting the night away; the one you want to keep talking to even though you’re not making sense anymore.
And for Summer, Tom wasn’t that person.It took me a while to analyze it but they did have a relationship. But there was no commitment.

The Critic

“Is it really that way with guys?” I asked him. “What is?” he said.“When guys are heartbroken, they channel their energies to their careers?”

Good for Tom, he didn’t waste away the entire Summer.
He made it to Autumn.
Pun intended.