7 Movie Characters Everyone Hates On For The Wrong Reasons
6. Summer Finn - (500) Days Of Summer
Why Everyone Hates Her: "That stupid b*tch toyed with Tom's feelings, emotionally manipulated him, broke his heart... and then married somebody else? How dare she?!" But Wait... The general reaction to Summer's character in the movie seems to be along the lines of: "OhmyGod, she's perfect," followed by "OhmyGod, what a skank - she's awful!" Thus, most people came out of (500) Days of Summer thinking that Summer Finn - the elusive object of Tom Hansen's desire - was a total b*tch. What most people seem to miss here is the fact that Tom, not Summer, is the one who is wrong for the sum of the movie. Seriously: he's the one with issues. It's easy to fall onto Tom's side, of course, because we're sort of forced into his shoes - he's the protagonist, Summer is the girl he tries to win over, and - most importantly - we've all been Tom at one point in our lives: we've fallen for somebody who won't commit or won't make it easy for us to be with them. But the point of the movie is that Tom puts Summer on a pedestal and imagines her as "the perfect girl,"and so it's impossible for her to live up to his preconceived exceptions. He also expects Summer to solve all his problems, because he's obsessed with the idea of this "perfect girl" coming along and making him happy. But remember that Summer tells him she doesn't want a full-on relationship, and when she finally ends up marrying somebody else, she tells him - honestly - that it felt "right" with the new guy. Summer isn't perfect, of course (kind of the point, though), but the movie is actually about Tom working through his issues. Joseph Gordon Levitt, who plays Tom, has spoken out on the matter: "I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is. He develops a mildly delusional obsession over a girl onto whom he projects all these fantasies. He thinks she'll give his life meaning because he doesn't care about much else going on in his life," which pretty much sums up the whole deal. Summer is a person, after all. Just a person.
