Hope / Happiness / Expectation in 500 Days of Summer -
Marc Webb
The film can be pretty much summed up in one of the first lines of the film. "This is a story of boy meets a girl. But you should know up front, this is not a love story." But is it? 500 Days of Summer is not your typical romantic film. There's something to it, something more than your usual romantic comedy. A born desperate Boy who's unhappy without any reason doubting himself for being unhappy meets his dream girl in an unexpected time. Tom, the boy faithful believer of true love enchanted by the love at first sight but, it's only him. Summer, the girl who's self centered, independent girl does not believe in love, relationships. The unrequited love of Tom turns into a stage of Friends with benefits but ended up being devastated and finally realizing the circle of life. Tom is frustrated. He's happy then sad. He doesn't know what to think. Tom tries to find the lost happiness of his life through Summer and his one sided love with vast of expectations and hopes for future made him more frustrated.
Through the film it always reminds that the inability to rely on an individual for lost happiness. Tom who's having doubt in himself blaming himself for being unhappy for no reason tries to fix his life through Summer, a completely opposite creature when comparing to Tom. The question on to what extent we can satisfy our lives through another person is doubtful because another individual is another character with different beliefs, dreams, feelings , desires etc. So how can we seek happiness from another one. By expecting happiness, the only thing we get is, disappointment, frustration and pain as Tom was devastated after the marriage of Summer. It shows how human tend to fix the life or gain lost happiness, interest in life through another person which is completely a failure. And it can be worse when you did not meet the right person. The films depicts how human tend to engage in meaningless relationships in order to fulfill lost happiness as Tom who has genuine feelings for Summer but engaged in a relationship like friends with benefits which is merely a lie. It proves the simple human psychology of how people are bound to another individual to gain happiness and how they expect their life satisfaction through another one.
Tom who always came out as an overthinker who has great hopes, expectations on insignificant things made his life monotonous and frustrated. From the first sight Tom lives in an imaginary world filled with hopes and expectation of life with Summer. The unspoken feelings of Tom made him to dream more on his unrequited love as Summer has same basic interests like songs, foods etc. It shows how people are dependents of illusionary world. And this film is a fine example to show the duality of hopes: Hopes can build our lives as well as it can ruin the life into shattered parts. Tom's one sided hopes expect love, recognition and future from Summer who's completely clueless about Tom's expectations. According to my point she's not wrong because in the first stage of their encounter she openly came out with her issues regarding love, constancy and trust so Tom can not blame her for leaving him. It's Tom's own hopes and expectations ruined him and made him frustrated.
At the end of the film it brought out an universal theme as he met an another girl named Autumn shows how the cycle of life with encounters with new people and departures of old people will continue till death. And his realization may leads him to find his life happiness within himself not being over attaching to certain characters expecting untold hops and desires from individuals which is merely a common realistic life lesson through comedy yet realistic story.
“The question of to what extent we can satisfy our lives through another person is doubtful because another individual is another character with different beliefs, dreams, feelings, desires.”
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your argument here. For some people, love is just a distraction to stay away from their unhappiness. most people try to find happiness through another person, through love. But what they do not understand is that one should find happiness within oneself And that loving yourself is the key to happiness. How can you love someone else, when you can not love yourself. After all, we live alone and we die alone, yet we create an illusion through love that we are not alone. But in fact, we all are born to be alone.
Change is an inevitable truth in life. We meet people, we separate, we go on our way, we meet new people, then the same thing happens again. Despite knowing this, people still hang on to love as a distraction to their unhappiness. When we find someone we like, we think they are our happiness but sometimes this leads to greater suffering afterward. The pain of losing someone you love is hard enough, but losing oneself is more unfortunate. People are different and we can not rely on them for anything because after all everyone changes. Most importantly what people need to understand is that losing someone is okay but losing oneself in the process is not okay at all.
According to what I can come upon, Change is the only thing that won't change in our lives.we meet people we lose people, but the most important thing to notice is nobody leaves without a reason people have their own reasons,whether it is justifiable or not is depending on the over viewer's point of view. And sometimes we tend to believe that we shouldn't get too attached to people knowing that we will have to witness the departure of them, but what I believe as a person is that we may get attached to people we feel like getting attracted to and live the moment. Eventhough we perfectly know that we will go insane after breaking up or after losing them, just live the happiest you can with them make the bestest memories because at the end of the day you have something to revisit and feel like home either with teary eyes or smiley eyes.
ReplyDeletePeople always seek happiness in other person. It's becomes an ultimate failure in life if you seek happiness from wrong person. We rarely find someone with same ideas,hopes and dreams as ours. Somepeople might adjust according to you and bring you happiness as they love you so much but it's rare. So,the best thing is finding happiness through yourself. You are the only one like you in the world.So, you have to make yourself happy through self-love. At the beginning we tend to think other ones will make you happy and indeed sometimes they will make you happy but remember not to rely on them as change is inevitable.Those people will leave you one day but if you doesn't want any disappointment at that period, you should be learned to make happiness within yourself.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with you.That is mainly because, Ultimately, you cannot be in a relationship that is healthy and positive if you don’t know how to be comfortable on your own. Sure, it can be lonely at times, but you need to learn that its okay to be in your own company without somebody else there to make you feel happy.Moreover, you cannot make somebody love you, even if it hurts to admit it. Everybody has their own choices and feelings, and sometimes that doesn’t align with what you are feeling and if you want to have a good relationship, you need to make sure that you can make yourself happy too. It doesn’t mean another person won’t make you happy, it just means they won’t be your only source of happiness.In fact, our happiness should not depend on another person.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is throughout the film what I felt was nothing but merely the thought "Really, is life a joke or something" was stuck in my head, because both characters:Summer and Tom, was depicted in a way that I couldn't come to a proper conclusion about who is wrong and who is right in their incongruent relationship. Their relationship was merely like an unwritten contract, thus the only common thing both of them expected from the relationship is self satisfaction: one tries to satisfy sexual needs and the other emotional needs. So my question is , Is this the real idea of getting into a relationship? Self satisfaction? And it's quite sarcastic how the same man who learned a lesson from his previous relationship tends to fall for the same kind of relationship again and again. So that ended up having another rhetoric in my head, Are we, humans this much weak ? Can't we just stay alone , without trying to satisfy our needs by trying to reach out to some other person who is least concerned about our needs, yet comes closer to us only to satisfy their own needs? Why are we making the so called LIFE a joke?
ReplyDelete