500 Days of Summer

I saw this film the weekend it opened in Madison with my best friend, Lee'at. We've been friends for more than 6 years and have guided each other through a number of rocky romances until we both recently found loving and dedicated partners.

By guided, I mean analyzed. I am, by nature, an analyzer. I will analyze every phone call, every lack of phone call, every text message, every word, hell, every time he sneezes I swear it means something. Lee'at is the same way.

But in this film, the guy, Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is the obsessor and the love of his life (or so he claims), Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel), is distant, dismissive and not at all committed.

I know it works both ways, but I have a feeling that more women have felt like Tom and have been hurt by guys like Summer. And watching the men who broke our hearts portrayed by a woman, especially one as beautiful, bohemian and full of life as Deschanel was surprisingly liberating.

Not to mention how adorable Gordon-Levitt is as a hopeless romantic.

The movie concludes with Summer marrying someone else, and explaining to Tom that she didn't believe in love like he did until she met her husband. In other words, she just didn't love Tom. He wasn't ugly, stupid, annoying or any of that. She just didn't fall for him. And it wasn't either of their faults.

Both Lee'at and I have rejected people, been rejected, fallen against our wills and finally loved someone who loves us back. Romances that might have meant the world to us may have been a time killer for our partners, and vice versa. But "500 Days of Summer" reminded us that things don't always look the same from both sides, and just because someone doesn't love you doesn't mean that no great guy ever will.