he who has eyes...

Tom: Wait. What happens if you fall in love?
Summer: You don’t believe that. Do you?
Tom: What? It’s love, it’s not Santa Claus.

So, just how good is the new movie (500) Days of Summer starring the lovely Zooey Deschanel and (sorry no adjective for you) Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Best love story since 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And, if you know anything about either of these two movies, you’ll see just what kind of love stories I like — the ones that are completely true-to-life, rip-your-heart-out-and-beat-you-with-it-while-it-is-still-beating-because-it’s-ironic-like-that.

The truth of it is, these two movies are the most honest love-stories I can remember Hollywood producing. They’re stories about love and our perception of love and how it’s seen as just something that happens to you and how that’s not exactly true.

And to me, they click so well because I’ve been through them almost to a T (except for the whole memory-erasing thing). But, I don’t think I can say anything constructive about those connections here while remaining objective, so let’s just leave it at this — the movies are made so well that you can’t help but connect to the storylines in some unreasonably deep way.

But now, what is it that these movies say about love? If these are, in my opinion, the best that Hollywood can offer about love, what is it that they’re feeding us anyway — and is this really love?

(I’ll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but I can promise only so much. Read at your own risk.)

From the attached quotes at the top of this, you can see what opinions are brought to the table by Tom (Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Deschanel). Tom sees love as something that happens to you, Summer doesn’t even believe that love really exists. And, let’s just say that the dynamics between these two worldviews bouncing around in this film are fantastic.

I think the general ideas on love are best expressed in a one scene in particular (and a bit of foreshadowing right at the get-go), in which the two are watching The Graduate — and Summer is just weeping at the end scene when Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross‘ characters are sitting next to each other on the bus. The narrator says at the start of (500) Days of Summer that Tom has a view of love that is painted by a misunderstanding of the movie The Graduate. You see that play out beautifully here.

Tom sees that the two characters in the film finally get to have each other after Hoffman’s character breaks up Ross’ wedding and they run away together. But, Summer actually gets it. You see, arguably my favorite unspoken moment in cinema history happens here at the end of The Graduate.

Hoffman and Ross and completely exhilarated after running away and are beaming while on the bus. But soon, both of them just stare straight forward and their smiles fade — as if to say, “Now what?” Then the movie ends.

This is what Summer sees. Love, if it even exists, is found in fleeting experiences that leave one feeling happy. However, before too long, reality sets in and all you’re left with is the “Now what?” moments.

(By the way, the watching-a-movie-and-getting-two-different-things-out-of-it-and-it-totally-defines-everything-that-is-wrong-in-your-relationship thing has happened to me, but with Lost in Translation, not The Graduate.)

In both (500) Days of Summer and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we get fantastic glimpses into what happens in the “Now what?” phase of a relationship. This is why I find these movies so amazing — they pass by all the dumb falling-in-love stuff, they tell you up front that the relationships described fail, and then they show you why and how and what it was like. Brilliant.

The movies highlight the fact that love is often seen as something you fall into, when in fact it’s more about the actions during the relationship that define the love than anything. And the worst part is, sometimes the actions and the efforts you put into it don’t work and love fails (hold your horses, ye Biblically-literate — I’ll get to it later!). But then after you, the audience, has it all figured out and understands that love doesn’t just happen and two people aren’t just meant for each other, the director throws a curveball at you and causes you to question everything.

Sound confusing? Well, it is. Because they’re movies about love, and love is confusing. Deal with it.

So what is love really? Truth is, I just don’t really know. And that’s just like love, isn’t it? It can seem so easy to define, and yet definition can always seem to completely slip out of your grasp.

Come on… You didn’t really think I had an answer for this, did you?

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But if I absolutely had to, it’d be able to throw some things out there. I’m only quoting things here though. I don’t know how to apply this really. I’m still learning and I’m trying hard, but you know… the same thing happens that always happens. Life.

As you probably know, I’m a guy who loves Jesus, and Jesus had a thing or two to say about love. So then the obvious question is, how does this idea of love that I seem to find so compelling mesh up with what Jesus thinks? If I don’t understand it, maybe I can make some sense out of it or you can help me out by reading this and commenting.

When we see the idea of love in the Bible, it’s never really much of a feeling as it is an action. Scripture tells us that true love is shown in that Jesus laid down his life for us [1 John 3:16]. It says that love is patient and kind, and it doesn’t envy or boast, and it’s not rude or self-seeking, and it’s not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs [1 Corinthians 13:4-5]. Love must be sincere [Romans 12:9]. And we are to love God and love each other with our lives, and that’s about all we are to do [Mark 12:29-31].

And of course, love never fails [1 Corinthians 13:8]. (See… told you I’d get there.)

What we see is simply this: love is an action. After you’ve gone through the passing fancy of romantic infatuation and beat on the glass doors of the wedding chapel to steal the bride away, you’ve still got to deal with the “Now what?” moments. And this is where love is found.

This is where you can decide if you’d lay down your lives for each other. This is where you find if you can be patient and kind and sincere. This is where you can see if you can submit and love as Christ loves the Church [Ephesians 5:22-33].

You see, what you have when you’re in the “Now what?” moments is a choice as to how you’re going to behave. It’s not some sort of “Oh… I’ve just fallen out of love with you. I simply can’t be with you any longer.” That doesn’t make sense here because love isn’t a feeling you fall into and out of. It’s a constant choice as to how you are going to act — are you going to continue to love or are you going to give up? And this, in my opinion, is how we can possibly understand that love never fails. It’s your choice, not something that happens to you that you are passively striken by.

And these movies deal with the difficulties of making this “love never fails” idea work in reality, after the “Now what?” sets in and the “falling in love” part is a distant memory. They diagram the sadly beautiful process of two people trying and trying and trying and eventually giving up.

It’s sad, but it is true — and at least I can identify with it more than I can in finding a glove and trying to find the perfect person to whom it belongs (take that, ending a sentence with a preposition!). That’s just a dumb movie idea.

Finally, just as (500) Days of Summer and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind leave you in the end with a glimmer of hope in the idea of fateful love, let’s leave you with a quote from the latter which I think is the truest movie quote on love that has ever been shown on screen. It’s at the end, when they decide to give the whole relationship a shot again. (Sorry about the spoiler, but it came out in 2004. See it already!)

Clementine: I’m not a concept Joel. I’m just a f***ed up girl who’s looking for my own piece of mind. I’m not perfect.
Joel: I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you.
Clementine: But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me.
Joel: [shrugs] Okay.
Clementine: [pauses] Okay.
Clementine: [laughs] Okay.
Joel: Okay.