500 Days Of Summer Analysis

500 Days of Summer (Tuchinsky et al., 2009) is a movie about relationship between Tom and Summer in a span of 500 days. The movie discovers how the protagonist fall in love and fail to maintain his relationship. There are many theories presented in this movie but the most obvious ones are: Love and Relationship Stage. Due to the fact that love in this movie is presented with heterosexual couple, there is also gender issue. Hence, this essay will focus on the analysis of the stages of the relationship and some theories of the love relationship between Tom and Summer.

The movie spends most of the time with Tom as the main character; therefore many analyses are directed at him. Summer has less screen time; hence less explanation for her character.

In the movie, the interaction between Tom and Summer and their ideas of love are highly individual (Welch & Rubin, 2002). For Tom, he has always believed in true love and the idea of “The One” – who is right for him and will love him. Men are more romantic in relationship (Sprecher & Metts, 1989), and Tom tries his best to make the relationship to work like he thinks it would be, as described in the split screen scenes of his imagination and reality. Moreover, from evolutionary theory’s perspective, men needs to constantly find partner to spread their genes, and the more attractive the female for that purpose, the better (Kim & Hartfield 2004). Tom is attracted to Summer by physical appearance, then passionately believe that she is the one he has been looking for. In contrast, Summer does not believe in love, and her stance is clear through her speeches and subtle actions shown near the end of the movie. Ultimately, when the relationship crumbles and comes to dissolution stage, Tom shows a major disappointment with life and obsessed with thoughts about Summer. Tom only dismisses Summer as a potential mate when Rachel tells him to think about all the incompatible actions she has done rather than what he imagine to be