“500 Days of Reality”

The film 500 Days of Summer is a romantic comedy released to theaters in 2009, directed by Marc Webb. Taking on the male's point of view, the film was the presentation of an alternate perspective on common, modern day love relationships between men and women. The film gives a very honest presentation of the male's point of view in relationships, and was successful in presenting the reality of love through his eyes. The film did this by exemplifying not only the ecstasy of their highs, but also the dread of their lows, as well as the harsh reality of their cyclical nature. While the film itself was able to successfully combine several different textual characteristics, it also utilized contextual aspects in its attempt to express this honest portrayal of love relationships, and all their many consequences.

500 Days of Summer utilized many basic textual elements to present the true reality of relationships. On the surface level of the film, the director presents the basic plot story of 'boy meets girl.' The boy, Tom Hansen, soon falls for the girl, honestly believing that she is—as the narrator quotes, “the one he has been searching for.” Here is the presentation of one of the first realistic aspects, that Tom, our male representation in the film, falls head over heels for the girl. He honestly believes he has found the answer to all of his love-life questions in the form of Summer, the woman. Its important to notice that Tom's initial destiny defining moment comes when he barely meets Summer, expressing the idea of “love at first sight.” He begins to feel that Summer will solve all his problems, and cure his love-less, and un-eventful life. This story element combined with later plot points; primarily when Summer leaves him, and when he meets another woman, help express a reality of love. Love can often come out of nowhere, unexpected and unplanned. It can appear to be the answer to all of our problems. Love can convince you to be stuck on one person, that they are somehow different than all the others. As his sister explains to him after the initial breakup, Tom has had several other girlfriends before. Some have left him, and he has left others, but for some reason he feels stuck on Summer, thinking that she is the only one. The film expresses the harsh reality of 'more fish in the sea' when Tom meets another girl. Both the pun of the film, and its success in showing the true cyclically nature of love and relationships comes when he discovers her name is Autumn.

Several other strong characteristics, both textual and contextual, of the film help portray the reality of relationships. One primary textual attribute was the aesthetic choice to show the whole story from Tom's perspective. We see his happy mood reflected in scenes immediately following their first date, to express the high of love life and the joy it offers. The juxtaposition of this scene combined with a flash-forward to his dreaded, and dreary state after the break up, express the reality that while love fills you up, it also tears you down. Combined with the contextual aspects of the film's authorship and genre, considering this romantic-comedy film was written and directed by men, we are given a strong view on the males' side of the playing field in romantic life. Tom, the male, is the one who falls for Summer. We can also view a reality of the film in the relation to the contextual, modern sense of cultural trends where men are often the enemies, or the ones on the offense when it comes to love. However, 500 Days of Summer exemplifies a reality of love when flips this idea. Tom is the one who wants the relationship so badly, and the one who can't get over her when she leaves. Tom is the one making constant effort, and the one who seems to be hurt when the dust settles. This aspect of the film helps shatter other ideas of men being the heartless-heartbreakers in this game called love. It helps show a reality that men also can be victims of loss, and heartache, correcting many common Hollywood and contemporary ideologies of quite the opposite belief toward males.

500 Days of Summer is a romantic-comedy film which took on the task of expressing a truer version of love life, and adult relationships, from the male point of view. The film combined several textual aspects, using its basic plot and aesthetic presentation, alongside contextual elements, such as the film's all male authorship and genre, in context with culture trends to present a more correct and honest reality of love. From the film, we see that men are also victims of puppy love, and that as such they can be the ones wounded as well. The film also expressed that love has a cyclical nature, and we seem to get stuck on one person, there are in fact “many other fish in the sea.”