Have you ever wished you could have a quick recap of a movie, so you know what it was about without actually having to watch it? Well then, I’ve got you covered.
Today I am going to explain a romance movie known as (500) Days of Summer that was released in 2009. Watch out, spoilers ahead.
First of all, it’s important that you understand that (500) Days of Summer was not arranged in a linear pattern like the normal movies we are used to. Basically, each scene is introduced by a day within the 500 days of the relationship between Tom and Sarah. And so we begin.
The movie starts with the 488th day, where we see Tom and Summer sitting somewhere on a bench as Tom holds on to Summer’s ringed finger.
Next, we get a peep into whom Tom really is. (You should note that the movie is mostly seen from Tom’s point of view). Tom is an average American man who works as a card writer in a greeting card company. He has a seemingly happy life with a few friends, but as it turns out, Tom is single.
During a meeting on one of those days, Tom would have thought it would be just like any other day; he met someone he would go in to think was the love of his life. His boss introduced his new assistant, Summer, to the board room, and Tom is immediately smitten by how gorgeous she was.
Tom goes on to tell his friends about Summer and how he would love to get in her good graces. He doesn’t go too hard to get her at first, but after an interaction between them in an elevator, Tom is immediately convinced that he has found ‘the one’ simply because she has the same music taste as him.
Over the next two weeks, Tom made half-arsed attempts to initiate conversations with Summer which kind of came off as cringe. This was sad to see as he was obviously so smitten by this new assistant.
But then, an opportunity arose. Tom’s closest buddy, McKenzie, informs him about a karaoke bar that the entire office would be going to the next evening. It probably clocked in his mind that he would meet up with summer in the bar. The problem for him was just the approach to take.
When Tom got to the bar, his best friend was already singing hard on the microphone. Summer seemed happy enough to see him as she greeted him with a warm smile. It was Summer’s turn to sing, so she went up to sing as Tom watched her while drinking with his friend. After she finished singing, she came to Tom’s table and started a conversation with him. The trio later had a conversation about love sparked up by the weird questions McKenzie asked Summer, and we clearly see where both Tom and Summer stood on the matter of love.
The topic of their argument; Is love real? Summer was strongly opinionated that love was just a figment of the imagination, so she didn’t have a boyfriend, and she was not looking for one. Tom, our hopeless romantic, begged to disagree. However, they both respected each other’s opinions and let them slide. Then she, consensually, got him a bit more tipsy to have enough confidence to sing. The bottom line is she got him to sing, and they all had fun.
As the night was over, McKenzie was drunk, so they had to help him get into a cab. However, Mckenzie does something unexpected. He blurts out that his best buddy liked summer Tom forcefully pushes him into the cab, and it zooms off. Summer asks Tom if there was any truth to what McKenzie said which Tom is not precisely confident enough to admit. After much prodding from summer, he finally admits that he likes her, but just as friends. Summer smiles and says Tom is ‘fascinating’ before she walks away, leaving him on the sidewalk with his mind whirling like a tornado.
The next day, Summer meets Tom as he is making some copies in the copy room. She starts working on her own copies on another machine, but then there is this awkward silence between them. Summer, ever the courageous one, walked toward Tom and kissed him. He was surprised at first, but he leaned in to kiss her back.
They stopped when her copies were finished and abruptly left the room. For someone who stated vehemently that she was not looking for a boyfriend, she was definitely going off the rails at this point.
From that moment, it seemed like their relationship was set in stone. Summer and Tom began to meet up to see the city and have fun in each other’s company. Tom takes her to his favorite place in the city and talks about how his first dream was actually to become an architect, and he was well on his way to becoming one until he ran out of funds. He had to take a job at the card company just to make hands meet. Summer also goes on to tell him about her the crazy and intimate thoughts she had in her head and also some quite intriguing stories, so to speak. We could see that as they kept being in each other’s company, their chemistry became more apparent for the eye to see.
They even joked about living as a married couple in IKEA. They went to one of those demonstration rooms and played around a little bit before moving to the bed section. She kisses Tom before clarifying that she is ‘not really looking for anything serious. Tom casually says that he is cool with that (we all know that’s a lie, don’t we?)
After leaving IKEA, they headed to Tom’s home, and they predictably began to make out. He stops midway and tells her he needs to get to the bathroom. It’s fun to watch how he begins to assure himself that what was going on was just casual. Thoughts of taking things slow flew out of the window when he went back into the bedroom and saw Summer sprawled on the bed, naked. Presumably, they made love. We say presumably because the scene was never shown.
They return to Tom’s bedroom and start to make out on his bed. He goes into the bathroom and convinces himself that it’s just casual fun, reminding himself to take it slow. As he walks out, however, he sees her lying naked on the bed. They presumably make love, although it is never shown.
Tom walks out the next morning ecstatic and feeling on top of the world. It’s so obvious that he has fallen in love with Summer from all the singing and dancing he is doing. He goes to work, and it looks like the sex worked magic on him as he churned out quality slogan content while Summer was the subject of his thoughts. But this, like everything in life, only lasts for a while.
A random guy comes on to Summer one night while they are both in a bar. He is obviously interested in her, so he tries to hit on her. However, Summer is clearly not interested, which she says plainly to him. The guy would not stop trying with Summer while Tom was there as he even threw a bit of insult toward Tom. Tom took offense and punched the dude. Hard… But not hard enough. The guy soon stands up and gives Tom a beat down that he will not forget anytime soon.
Summer takes him home after the beat-down scene and begins to yell at Tom. Why? She claims Tom did not throw the first punch because he was trying to protect her integrity. He only threw that first punch due to his own self-gratification. Naturally, Tom yells back at her, stating that what they had was not a friendship but an actual relationship, no matter how she sees or labels what they have. He walks away after making it clear that she is not the only one who gets to have a say in what they share.
They both head to bed in their homes, still smarting from the fight they just had. Tom almost calls her, but he opts against it. Surprisingly, Summer is the first to reach out the next morning as she turns up at his apartment. She apologizes to him as she shares her past experiences with relationships and also talks about her first relationship and even her experience with bisexuality. They both seemed to have made up as they both seemed quite happy.
After some weeks, They both go to the movies to see a film. This particular film, titled the Graduate ends with Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross escaping from a wedding as their faces are filled with emotions of joy and excitement. For some reason, Summer begins to cry as the end credits fade out, and she tells Tom that she wants to go home. She says she is tired and wants to sleep at this point, but Tom would have none of that. He convinces her to go to get pancakes with him. Summer tells Tom that she thinks they shouldn’t see each other anymore while they are waiting for the pancake they ordered. Tom is confused because he thought they were happy. But Summer says that she wasn’t. Tom storms off as their pancake order arrive, but Summer tells him that she doesn’t want him to leave because he was her best friend. He ends up going, though. How did she think that would play out in the first place?
McKenzie, seeing how distraught Tom has become, calls Tom’s little sister, Rachel, for a little rescue mission to get Tom to move on. She arrives at Tom’s apartment on her bike where after which she makes Tom tell them what happened. Tom talks about the relationship, and then they break up and then comes to a conclusion that he doesn’t need to get Summer back. All he needed to do was to get her back.
However, his performance at work also took a major hit as his depression deepened. His boss had to call him to have a talk so he could know what was going on. He asked Tom if his work was affected because Summer had left. Apparently, she had quit without any tangible reason, so the boss put two and two together. Their relationship was not a closely guarded secret as they thought Tom tried to deny it, but the boss tells him everyone in the office knows about them.
After some months, Tom takes a train to one of his co-worker’s weddings, where he sees Summer. He tries to hide from her, but she sees him and goes to initiate a conversation with her. They then went out for coffee together and caught up on old times. They spend the whole weekend together, and she invites tom over to her place later for a party.
Tom finds out at the party that she is getting married to someone else, which leaves him rather distraught. Who wouldn’t be? All his hopes that were slowly rising over the weekend were crumbled in one fell swoop, so he left without a word.
Still heartbroken, Tom later loses his job after going rogue during the pitch for a new card. He said that the company was selling lies to its customer as he felt that his belief in love and relationships were wrong from the onset.
After quitting, we see Tom slowly picking himself up. His sister tells him to take another look at the failed relationship. He realizes that Summer was always hesitant to give herself a chance at true happiness during their relationship.
He takes up architecture once again and draws some designs in order to fill up his portfolio. He makes a list of companies to which to send his portfolio, but most of them reject him as he begins to lose hope.
Distraught, he goes to sit on his favorite spot in the city, where Summer calls out to him. She says she knows that he is angry with her, and she understands, and she was sorry. However, Tom tells her that he now understands that his concept of love was all wrong. Surprisingly, Summer says he was not bad because she found all that he was talking about in her husband. She was never sure that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Tom, but with her husband, there was this certainty she had within her. She leaves after Tom tells her that he is happy that she is happy.
After that, Tom goes on a job interview where he sits across another girl waiting for the same interview. She tells him she knows him and that she sees him sitting in one of her favorite spots in the city, which is coincidentally Tom’s favorite spot too.
Tom invites her for coffee as he is called in for the interview, which she accepts before telling him her name, which is Autumn.
Hope you enjoyed our little recapp of 500 Days of Summer! Be sure and keep an eye out for future romance movies recapped.
