'(500) Days of Summer' offers a heartbreaking look at love

I wanted to see "(500) Days of Summer" when I first saw it advertised, but I put it off because I knew it wasn't a typical romantic comedy. In fact, a narrator at the very beginning of the movie says, "This is a story of boy meets girl...but this is not a love story."

*NOTE: There are some spoilers below.

Even with all that said, I still held out hope that the movie would have a happy ending. And in some ways, I guess it did even though it wasn't quite a typical Hollywood ending.

The movie really reminded me of a book I read years ago by Alain de Botton, called "On Love" (also marketed as "Essays on Love." I may not have ever made the connection except that the main characters in the movie happen to read a different book by de Botton. The book follows a relationship from the first glimpses to the miserable ending. And that's pretty much what "(500) Days of Summer" does as well.

In it Tom (Joseph Gordon Levitt) falls hard for Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) when she takes an assistant's job in the office where he works. He writes greeting cards, though he studied architecture. He is solely focused on Summer, but Summer tells him early on she's not looking for a serious relationship or a boyfriend.

The movie has an interesting format that allows viewers to see the stark contrast between a boy in love and a boy left empty after a break up. It starts in what turns out to be the middle of movie as Summer is telling Tom she doesn't think they should see each other anymore. And then it goes back to the first day he meets her. The movie moves back and forth between the time during their relationship and after the break up. There are also a few gimmicks in the movie that are supposed to help illustrate Tom's elation and despair, that I found to distract from the storyline.

Overall though, I thought it was well done and the lead actors were perfect in their roles.

Someone I know who saw the movie when it first came out said it was painful to watch, and at first, I thought he meant it was such a bad movie it was painful. But he meant it was painful to watch someone fall so madly in love just to have it unrequited. After watching the movie, I wondered if I have been more like Tom or more like Summer in my approach to relationships. Tom is completely open about his feelings, he falls fast and he sees only the good things about Summer. Summer is cautious with her feelings, and guarded. She seems scared of trusting someone enough to get hurt.

I think most people are probably a little bit like both Tom and Summer, depending on the situation. I have certainly felt strongly for people who clearly didn't feel the same for me - and in the middle of it every small gesture of kindness seemed like an unspoken declaration of love. Like one my best guy friends who used to hold my hand every time we went to clubs together because "it was crowded," but would stop speaking to me if I even broached the topic of how he felt about me. For a long time, the occasional hand-holding was enough. And then it wasn't and I moved on.

I've also been on the other side of things and it's hard to resist the lure of spending time with someone who thinks I'm great, even if my own feelings are a bit ambivalent. But unlike Summer in the movie, I don't think I've ever gotten quite so involved with someone when I knew the spark wasn't there. The last time someone confessed his feelings for me two years ago, I was interested in someone else and I told him I felt I owed it to myself to see how things panned out with the other guy. In the end, I lost his friendship and the other guy turned out to be ambivalent about me.

The most heart-breaking moment in the movie is when Tom realizes that after nearly two years of telling Tom she isn't interested in a relationship or having a boyfriend, he realizes she has gotten engaged to someone else. She tries to explain it to him, how she woke up one morning and she knew. Tom asks her what she knew, and she responds, "The thing I was never sure of with you."

I guess the thing that makes a relationship work is when both people end up on the sure side of things at the same time, and I hope someday I'll be there.

A rough bit of rejection

I guess it was bound to happen, but I never thought it would happen to me. I got rejected on Facebook. That's right. I sent a friends request to someone and got turned down. It was a first, and I have to admit, I was a little taken aback.

Rejection stings no matter what the circumstance. And its one of those things in life that is impossible to avoid - unless you chose to live as a hermit, in which case the rejection is still there, it's just self-induced.

In my life so far, I've been rejected by two universities. I was accepted to all the undergrad schools to which I applied except for the West Coast stand in for an Ivy League, Stanford. But the truth is, Stanford was my fifth choice at best so it didn't really matter. Northwestern University also turned me down for its graduate program in magazine journalism. I had my heart set on it, but pep talks from coworkers and friends quickly helped me to see the benefits of going to the University of Southern California - namely no snow in the winters.


I've been rejected for jobs by a handful of prospective employers, including a coffeeshop, a prep school and a local newspaper. But again, things turned out for the best when I landed at the Weekend Pinnacle with a publisher who was willing to coach me and who saw my potential long before I did.

Of course, like most people, I've been rejected in love a time or two, or dozen. Some of the rejections have been crystal clear as with the guy who opted to have another beer rather than walk me to my car at 1 a.m. Other times, it was a little murkier, like my grad school crush who called me three times a week to find out what our homework assignments were and talked with me for hours on the phone, and even held my hand once, briefly on the way home from a bar.

I have to admit that I've done my share of rejecting - the colleges that accepted me that I turned down, for starters. And the men whose advances I've spurned. I've even turned down quite a few job applicants in my time.

The thing with rejection is that in hindsight, it always works out for the best.

But I guess that is what perplexes me about the Facebook friends request rejection. I can't imagine a time I will look back and think it was for the best. In the scheme of things, Facebook is such a small thing, but that is perhaps what makes the rejection sting a little. After all, someone doesn't like me enough to be online acquaintances with me.

Once I got over the initial shock of the rejection, I did what any normal person would do. I sent out another friends request to an old grad school friend and within hours I got the message that we are now friends. After all, if there is one thing I've learned about rejection it's to get back up and try again. Someone's bound to say yes sooner or later.