12 Subtle Movie Plot Points You Probably Overlooked

6. Tom Is The A**hole, Not Summer - (500) Days Of Summer

The Plot Point: When Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer came out, it was celebrated as an indie gem and one of the more authentic cinematic depictions of contemporary romance. One consistent view among many viewers is that Summer (Zooey Deschanel) is a callous b**ch who refuses to enter a relationship with Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and ultimately smashes his heart to pieces. In reality, though, Gordon-Levitt himself put it best: "I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is." That's right. It's important to realise that Tom is essentially an unreliable narrator, playing-up the favourable aspects of his time with Summer and downplaying the less-happy ones, projecting an idyllic image of his perfect girl onto Summer who is, of course, an actual human being and absolutely not perfect (because the perfect woman or man does not and cannot exist). Tom is entirely consumed by his "love" for Summer, but never really seems to show much of an interest in the life she has away from him, hence why he never meets any of her friends. Summer appears to know this, and it seems to largely be the reason why they split the sheets and she ended up married a short time later, presumably to a guy who wasn't totally selfish. Why You Probably Missed It: Because it's such a charming film regardless, and as such it's easy to get swept up in the cutesy not-quite-relationship between Tom and Summer. Gordon-Levitt makes Tom so charming that it's easy to ignore the fact that he's really living in a fantasy world and essentially ruining his own chances with Summer through his own selfish, besotted attitude.