There is no villain in (500) Days of Summer

I have seen Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summer at varying stages of my life. Despite it coming out in 2009, I wouldn’t discover it until four years later — at age 13, when all you know about love is that one high school boy who could play the guitar. At the time, I would say that I was defined by my yearning; how unashamedly I would pine over people that wouldn’t even look my way. This made it easy to connect with Tom Hansen and easy to hate Summer Finn, the film’s two protagonists.

(500) Days of Summer sets the tone right off the bat. “This is a story of boy meets girl,” the film’s unidentified narrator booms before the opening credits. “You should know upfront, this is not a love story.”

And it’s not. Told in a nonlinear narrative, the movie takes us through Tom and Summer’s relationship — from love at first sight to messy break-up. Tom’s hopeless romanticism and Summer’s cynical views on love conflict, but they end up together nonetheless. We follow along on their dates in Los Angeles record shops and IKEA installations until Summer calls it quits, causing Tom to go in a downward spiral that can only be induced by genuine heartbreak.

In large part, the film’s appeal lies in its unflinching story-telling. (500) Days of Summer translates Tom’s anguish in a way that is real and relatable, calling attention to how often we exaggerate the heartaches of our own lives. Whether it’s drinking your days away or snapping at everyone being inconsiderately romantic within your vicinity, Tom’s embarrassing despair is painfully palpable. “When your heart is first broken, it consumes you,” Webb once said about the film. “And it's an emotion I wanted to make a movie about before I forgot how it felt.”

Rarely do we forget, though, how that first heartbreak feels; which is why it is easy to side with Tom and rear our ugly head at Summer. How dare she lead him on, my thirteen-year-old self thought angrily. Tom had done nothing but love her! Summer was cold and callous, and surely the villain of this film for moving on so quickly. I vaguely remember swearing that I would never be like Summer and, to a lesser extent, that I would never have my heart broken like Tom.

I would revisit (500) Days of Summer a few years later, this time around age 16 — one failed relationship later. With a fresh pair of eyes, I started to see Summer beyond being a ‘manic pixie dream girl.’ She was doomed to the trope the moment she overheard Tom’s obscure indie music and told him that she loved the band, too. The Smiths’ There Is A Light That Never Goes Out sets the tone not only for the film’s contemporary lo-fi pop soundtrack but also for Summer’s quintessential role: to serve as nothing but a lesson for the film’s brooding protagonist.

It frustrated me that Summer was so one-dimensional and that Tom worshipped her regardless. The romanticized characterization of Summer seems to be a conscious choice of the directors, though, to drive home how unhealthily Tom glorified her. “[Summer] is an immature view of a woman,” Webb asserted in an interview. “She's Tom's view of a woman. He doesn't see her complexity and the consequence for him is heartbreak.” Because Tom had put Summer on a pedestal of utter perfection, I ended up thinking that Summer had no depth. It took me three years to admit that I had made an unfair judgment of her. “Summer’s not a girl,” Webb said before. “She’s a phase.”

The tides shifted and I became frustrated with Tom this time around. How dare he accuse her of being a bitch, my sixteen-year-old self sneered. Summer had made it clear from the very start that she wasn’t comfortable being anyone’s girlfriend. Tom was selfish and obsessive, and definitely the villain of the film for idealizing Summer. I told everyone who would listen that I’d never be as bad in love as Tom was and, to a greater extent, that I would always be upfront about my intentions — just as Summer was.

I’m 20 now. I re-watched (500) Days of Summer this quarantine, with an ex-boyfriend over Netflix Party. It was my nth time seeing the film, but it was his first. He laughed in all the right places and poked fun at the indie songs I’d added to my playlists for him, but we both watched one of the closing sequences in contemplative silence.

The scene unravels on a bench in Angel’s Knoll, the park that witnessed the early days of Tom and Summer’s relationship — except, now, Summer is engaged to someone else. “You never wanted to be anyone’s ‘girlfriend’ and now you’re somebody’s wife,” Tom says bitterly, to which Summer tries to argue, “It just happened. I woke up one day and I knew.”

“Knew what?” Tom asks, exasperated.

Summer delivers the final blow: “What I was never sure of with you.”

I’d heard the dialogue so many times that I had practically memorized it and yet, each time, I found myself receiving it differently. When I was 13, my heart went out to Tom who promptly complained about how much it sucked to realize that “destiny, soulmates, [and] true love” was a sham. When I was 16, I respected Summer for her genuine repentance despite having little to no fault; she kept her frankness up to the very end, acknowledging Tom’s pain without granting him any sense of false hope.

Seeing it now is a little different, though. It’s not as clear-cut to me who the villain is—because maybe there isn’t one. I don’t think there was ever supposed to be one. (500) Days of Summer, at its core, is an unsentimental meta-romcom that is honest with its audience from start to finish.

Case in point: In the same ending scene, Summer shoots back at Tom for saying he should’ve listened to her. She talks about how she met her husband before saying, “Tom, it was meant to be, just like you said. And as it was happening, I knew it. I could feel it. And I kept thinking to myself, ‘Wow, Tom was right.’ You were right about all of it.”

When Summer says ‘it’, she means all of Tom’s hopeless romanticism — his belief in labels, in happy endings. It seems ironic to hear, coming from an ex whose leave brought utter devastation, until Summer pauses and serves Tom one last grace:

“It just wasn’t me you were right about.”

Comfort, candour, closure.

As the movie’s credits rolled, my ex was quick to say that he related more with Summer. It made sense — we both knew I was the one deeper in my feelings throughout our brief relationship — but it was jolting to realize that I’d gone from acting like Summer in my past serious relationship to, again, being as lovesick as Tom.

Every so often, I find myself shuttling between the two; craving certainty the same way that Tom did, fearing being known the same way that Summer was. If there’s anything I’ve taken away from the film, it’s that I no longer have to antagonize either Tom or Summer. Not all failed relationships have to have a ‘bad guy’. In the same vein, not all failed relationships are the end all be all of what I know of romance.

Besides, I’m only 20. The next time I decide to watch (500) Days of Summer—at whatever age that may be—I hope to be able to prove Tom right, too. I hope to get it all right like Summer got to.

By Andrea Mikaela B. Llanes

(she/her)

Edited by Paola Duran (IG: @wintrytokyo)

Graphics by Maya Swift (IG:mayaisabelaswift)