FILMS

Summer lovin’ with a marital message

Reviewed by Rebecca Bostic | Aug. 6, 2009 | The Catholic Sun

Some of us living in Arizona might incorrectly assume that “500 Days of Summer” (Fox Searchlight) is a horror movie. It’s actually about a young man’s nearly two-year long failed pursuit of a young woman named Summer.

The independent film begins with a disclaimer that it is not a love story — and that is true. It cannot be considered a true love story because the relationship between Summer, played enigmatically by Zooey Deschanel, and Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, exists outside the context of, and without any plans for, marriage.

The film demonstrates the doomed nature of such a relationship surprisingly well. As this “season of love” draws to a close, a positive view of marriage and the real freedom that comes from an exclusive and committed relationship is explicitly spelled out by none other that the formerly flighty Summer.

Tom and Summer are co-workers in their 20s who have many days of happiness before they break up. The film jumps from day to day of their relationship, starting with day 488, moving to day 188, to day 1 and then back into the midst of their relationship.

From the outset of their relationship Summer demands that it remain “casual” — this means an intimate relationship without commitment. Tom, the love-struck idealist, takes issue with this. Summer takes issue with Tom. And, as the film shows, Tom loses his faith in love while Summer learns the problems of her ways.

Ultimately Summer finds true happiness — something absent in her “casual” relationship with Tom — in marriage. Perhaps paradoxically to some, it is in the context of a committed relationship that she finds the freedom she searched for in casual, uncommitted intimacy.

Artistically “500 Days of Summer” is terrific. The structure of the film, as it moves from day to day of the relationship, is brilliantly executed.

There are many innovative techniques employed in the telling of the story and showing the emotions of the characters. In one such scene, two versions of the same party play out next to one another. One shows Tom’s expectations and the other shows reality.

The acting is terrific and the characters are interesting. It is a tale of love and loss that is wonderfully pieced together.

Unfortunately, though, the bulk of the film is spent building up Summer and her life philosophy. The finale of “500 Days of Summer” pointedly refutes the relationship Tom and Summer adopted, but it is probably too little, too late.

While the commitment of marriage is what provides true freedom for Summer, this moral message is surprising and comes as almost a footnote of sorts. Most of the film seems to preach the opposite.

The doubts young people have about committed relationships are well-known to Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted. He addresses those doubts in “Covenant of Love,” a July 26 pastoral letter about marriage for the Diocese of Phoenix.

People involved in marriage preparation in the Catholic Church continually see “pervasive doubts and fears now regularly encountered in young people who, seeing few role models for lifelong marriage and even fewer for happy ones, have a difficult time committing to a lifelong union,” the bishop writes.

Summer approaches her relationship with Tom with precisely this mental block. Summer, a daughter of divorced parents, cannot believe in a lasting union with a single person. Yet she eventually discovers — as the directives in “Covenant of Love” hope to educate — that real freedom comes in the commitment she has feared and shunned for so long.

The sad state of the world’s assumptions about love and marriage — that neither is likely to last forever — is reflected throughout the film. But the surprising conclusion offers a glimmer of counter-cultural hope for the sacrament of marriage. This short and surprisingly moral scene might not be enough to make up for the overall thrust of the movie, but “500 Days of Summer” is at least getting warmer.

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Media critic Rebecca Bostic is a regular contributor to The Catholic Sun. Comments are welcome. Send e-mail to letters@catholicsun.org.