(500) Days of Summer

Narrator: This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total mis-reading of the movie ‘The Graduate’. The girl, Summer Finn of Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parent’s marriage she’d only love two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8th. He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story. 

Tom: It’s official. I’m in love with Summer. 
[while Montage of Summer plays] 
Tom: I love her smile. I love her hair. I love her knees. I love how she licks her lips before she talks. I love her heart-shaped birthmark on her neck. I love it when she sleeps. 

Summer: I woke up one morning and I just knew. 
Tom: Knew what? 
Summer: What I was never sure of with you.

Tom: Look, we don’t have to put a label on it. That’s fine. I get it. But, you know, I just… I need some consistency. 
Summer: I know. 
Tom: I need to know that you’re not gonna wake up in the morning and feel differently. 
Summer: And I can’t give you that. Nobody can. 

Tom: I hate her crooked teeth. I hate her 1960s haircut. I hate her knobby knees. I hate her cockroach-shaped splotch on her neck. I hate the way she smacks her lips before she talks. I hate the way she sounds when she laughs.

Tom: Either she’s an evil, emotionless, miserable human being, or… she’s a robot.

If Tom had learned anything… it was that you can’t ascribe great cosmic significance to a simple earthly event. Coincidence, that’s all anything ever is, nothing more than coincidence… Tom had finally learned, there are no miracles. There’s no such thing as fate, nothing is meant to be. He knew, he was sure of it now. 

Tom: Did you ever do this, you think back on all the times you’ve had with someone and you just replay it in your head over and over again and you look for those first signs of trouble? 

Summer: There’s no such thing as love, it’s fantasy… 

There’s only two kinds of people in the world. There’s women, and there’s men. Summer Finn was a woman. 

Summer: Well, you know, I guess it’s ‘cause I was sitting in a deli and reading Dorian Gray and a guy comes up to me and asks me about it and… now he’s my husband. 
Tom: Yeah. And… so? 
Summer: So, what if I’d gone to the movies? What if I had gone somewhere else for lunch? What if I’d gotten there 10 minutes later? It was - it was meant to be. And… I just kept thinking… Tom was right. 
Tom: No. 
Summer: Yeah, I did. 
[laughs] 
Summer: I did. It just wasn’t me that you were right about. 

Tom: You don’t want to be named as anybody’s girlfriend, and now you’re someone’s wife?