Shiralie Chaturvedi
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500 Days of Summer proudly calls itself a story about love as opposed to a love story. It gave us multiple cinema tropes and pop-culture elements that we still refer to; all wielded tightly under the garb of love. It tried to show us the insidious and self-absorbed type of love, it gave us a brand of misogyny that was rather soft, it gave us hedonism that confused us. It gave us the Manic Pixie Dream Girl – the trope that launched a thousand versions of itself. She was commitment phobic, she was selfish, she was confused, she was a masochist, she was the archetypal male so to speak – and perhaps that is why her character veered close to the villainous texture it received. Joseph Gordon Levitt brought the hopeless, helpless, emo, typically indie boy to screen so perfectly that you felt sorry for him at the very first go and then just when everything settles down you feel repelled because he manifested all his insecurities and vulnerabilities onto a girl and expected her to fix him! But that may be a controversial opinion. However, between Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel the chemistry and the awkwardness indie-nerdiness was absolutely endearing, even if flawed. The idea of this movie can be simply summed in the following quotes, 10 years on, they still are the perfect balance between reality and cynicism.
1. Just because she likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn’t make her your soul mate.
2. The best way to get over a woman is to turn her into literature.
Read: 10 Quotes From Before Sunset That Redefine Love
3. People don’t realize this, but loneliness is underrated.
4. People should be able to say how they feel. How they really feel. Not some words that some strangers put in their mouths.
5. There’s no such thing as love. It’s a fantasy.
Read: Whoopsie-Daisies: 20 Years Of Falling In Love With Notting Hill
6. People buy cards because they can’t say they feel or are afraid to. And we provide the service that let’s them off the hook. You know what? I say to hell with it.
7. She took a giant shit on my face…literally
8. People should be able to say how they feel, how they really feel, not ya know, some words that some stranger put in their mouth.
9. Why is it pretty girls think they can treat people like crap and get away with it?
10. I like being on my own. Relationships are messy and people’s feelings get hurt. Who needs it?
