Joseph Gordon-Levitt has weighed in on his character in 500 Days of Summer and why some viewer’s views of him are very problematic.
The 2009 rom-com saw The Dark Knight Rises actor star alongside Zooey Deschanel, playing the role of a character named Tom.
And it turns out that, while many viewers may know to run if a man’s name begins with ‘J,’, others aren’t quite as fine-tuned to the nuances of red flags and ended up falling for Tom’s charms – blind to some harsh realities about the character which Gordon-Levitt has since weighed in on.
Viewers crushing on Tom
500 Days of Summer was written by Scott Neustadter (The Fault in Our Stars) and Michael H. Weber (The Fault in Our Stars) and directed by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man).
The story centers around Tom (Gordon-Levitt) who’s dumped by his girlfriend Summer (Deschanel) and so reflects on their last 500 days together in a desperate bid to figure out what went wrong.
And it’s fair to say lots of viewers ended up pretty obsessed with Gordon-Levitt’s character.
One Twitter user wrote: “Tom (500 Days of Summer) -really clichè based -hopeless romantic -in love with love -obsessed with Summer -needs to move on and love me.”
“Tom from 500 days of summer really got his whole life torn apart by a three month situationship he’s just like me,” another added.
But they’re missing some red flags which Gordon-Levitt has since addressed.
Some viewers put Tom on a bit of a pedestal and ignored some red flags (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Why crushing on Tom is problematic
While Gordon-Levitt ‘really liked’ the movie, he takes issue with some viewers’ reading of his character within it.
In an interview with Playboy he reflected: “The (500) Days Of Summer attitude of ‘He wants you so bad’ seems attractive to some women and men, especially younger ones. But 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.
“A lot of boys and girls think their lives will have meaning if they find a partner who wants nothing else in life but them. That’s not healthy. That’s falling in love with the idea of a person, not the actual person.”
And thankfully the penny has finally dropped for some viewers.
Tom isn’t quite as ‘perfect boyfriend’ as some viewers think (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
A Twitter user taking to the platform in revelation said: “I remember watching 500 Days of Summer years ago. told myself that i would never forgive summer for breaking tom’s heart. but i watched it again today and realized that tom’s heartbreak was not summer’s fault, it was all his.”
“All this time I hated Summer from the 500 days of Summer movie. But now watching it again made me realize how selfish Tom was. Lol,” another added.
A third said: “I think we can all agree that Tom from 500 days of summer was only a victim of his own delusions.”
And a fourth resolved: “500 Days of Summer reminds you to talk it out and listen. Tom wasn’t listening. And him not listening set up expectations that absolutely crushed him.”