Days of Summer

Sometimes the films that make an impression on us aren`t the films we want to make an impression on us. Critically acclaimed films might be the ones we display proudly on our shelves, but they`re not always the ones that make a difference.

In 1999 – the year of American Beauty, Notting Hill, The Sixth Sense, The Green Mile, The (first) Matrix and Star Wars – it was the fluffy Ten Things I Hate About You that had a big impact on me. From a basic teenage girl perspective, it was the first time I had ever had a full blown crush on a male celebrity; Heath Ledger in that film was, and remains – even though he is now gone – everything I didn`t know I was looking for (I had a passion for David Bowie in The Labrynth as well, but I think that because of my age – six - it was largely platonic; despite the shiny and revealing leggings). On a slightly deeper level, the film reassured me in a way I didn`t know I needed to be reassured. I was very lonely that year, with very few friends, and the fact that the heroine was also lonely and had no friends – and yet somehow made that look good and then ended up with Heath – was a great comfort to me. I fell in love both of them – him, and her – because they made it okay: at some stage, I realised that somebody would love me despite of (or indeed because of) the fact that nobody else seemed to. And that was a feeling I carried around long after the Green Mile tears had dried, or the desire for a long black swishy coat had passed, or I had stopped Seeing Dead People (although I`ve still never seen Star Wars, thank God).

Last night, I watched another fluffy film that had a similar impact on me: (500) Days of Summer. The fact that the lead male looks identical to the man who just broke my heart is ironic (although their mannerisms are different enough to make it bearable), but it is – in essence – a film from the same genre as Ten Things: a sweet, puffy, independent rom-com about a boy who falls in love for the first time, and then has his heart totally broken by a girl who thinks that she feels the same way and then realises that she doesn`t. I doubt it will win any awards, but the writing is good, the acting is good, the direction is good, and the music is superb.

We each bring ourselves to the films we watch, though - even if the Oscars ignore them - and this film left a deep impression on me just when I needed one. Heartbreak is bad; confusion is worse. Understanding what makes no sense takes up more time than hurting ever does. Working out how somebody could say they love you and still hurt you so badly, adore you and still walk away, is confusing: no matter how many times you spin it around in your head like an old wooden Top to see where it lands.

Eleven years after Ten Things made me think that things might be okay again, Days of Summer has done a similar thing. The main character is obviously handsome, but it`s his mannerisms that make him stand out; and, in all honesty - once the cheating started - I stopped seeing the gestures I loved in the boy who broke my heart (the tiny twitch of a bottom lip or the twist of a hip when they walk that makes them grab the inside of you and twist it around). I looked and I looked, but I stopped being able to see them: I even stopped being totally sure that they had been there at all.

More importantly, the film made me realise that it happens: that millions of people all over the world fall in love with somebody who doesn`t love them the way everybody deserves to be loved; unquestioningly, unreservedly and uncompromisingly. Love is one thing, and relatively common; that kind of love is another, and it is not. And it has made the questions a lot easier to answer, even if they don`t hurt any less right now. Because the fact that there were any means that it wasn`t what I was looking for. And the fact that he could never really answer them means that I deserve something better. We all do.

Towards the end of the film – after the heartbreak and the tears and the depression and the agonising and obsessing – the boy sees her again, just after she has married someone else. And he tells her that he doesn`t understand why she has chosen somebody that isn`t him; he asks her how she could have chosen to commit to somebody so soon after she said that she couldn`t commit to anybody.

“I woke up one morning,” she says, “and I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“What I was never sure of with you.”

Heartbreak is incredibly painful, but I am going to let go and stop asking questions. Real love doesn`t have any, and when I meet the right person, there won`t be any questions at all: because the pain and the lies and the instability and doubt are a result of uncertainty. The right person - wherever they are right now, and whatever they`re doing - will wake up in the morning next to me, and they will know. They will look at me and they will be sure, the way that he never was.

And - perhaps, finally, when I look at them back and I see gestures I love that never go away - I will be sure too.