Sam Van Zeeland
COM200
Application Paper #2
Due: November 14, 2011
500 Days of Communication
The movie 500 Days of Summer, released in 2009, contains numerous examples of
interpersonal communication. The film follows a young greeting card writer, Tom, throughout
his relationship with a coworker, Summer. The characters have different viewpoints when it
comes to love; Tom is a true romantic and believes in fate, while Summer believes that love is a
fiction created by children’s fairytales and the media. At the beginning of the film, the narrator
states that although this is a story of a boy and a girl, it is not a love story. He is correct; in the
end, there is no fairy tale ending, and Summer and Tom do not end up together. From the start to
the end of the film, viewers see examples of several interpersonal concepts: romantic relationship
stages, both “coming together” and “coming apart,” nonverbal communication, and the grief
stages in effect after the end of a romantic relationship.
In the film, Knapp’s relational stages (both “coming together” and “coming apart”) are
well illustrated. The initiating stage is well represented; when Tom sees Summer walk into one
of his work meetings for the first time, he “sizes her up.” They make eye contact several times,
and it seems like she is sizing him up as well. He decides she is attractive, but does not yet act
on that conclusion. That is what is commonly known as their first impression of each other and
is mainly based on physical attractiveness. Shortly after, Tom and Summer end up in the
elevator together. When Summer hears that Tom is listening to one of her favorite musicians,
they strike up a conversation. They take part in even more small talk when they go to the
karaoke bar for a work get together, exchanging information about their majors, where they went
to school, and even getting as deep as talking about their opinions of love. This is where we
discover that Tom is a romantic, but Summer does not believe that love exists. These examples
of small talk that they partake in exemplify the experimenting stage, where the “couple” looks
for subjects on which they can base further interaction.
Tom and Summer begin to casually date shortly after the time they had together at the
karaoke bar, but Summer would never label it as such. The intensifying stage is very much
projected in this film; Tom reveals his secret desires of leaving the greeting card company to
become and architect, and Summer tells Tom secrets she claims she had never told anyone else.
Tom takes this as a sign that their relationship is getting deeper and more serious. Although
Summer never verbalizes her feelings, Tom often times expresses his feelings to Summer, telling
her he wishes they could be in a real relationship which Summer is so hesitant to do. They
nonverbally share more secret glances, make more eye contact, and are intimate with each other.
Knapp’s integrating and bonding stages are not really met in Tom and Summer’s relationship,
as Summer ends it before it gets to that point, maybe of fear of the future or maybe from
uncertainty of her feelings.
We then begin to see the “coming apart” stages occurring in Tom and Summer’s
relationship. It all started with differentiating. Tom’s friends began to ask what was going on
between him and Summer; Tom could not answer them. With the help of his wise sister, Tom
asked Summer about it. She did not care and did not think that it mattered. They were both
happy, right? Why put labels onto that? That bothered Tom. He began to question things; he
needed consistency and a relationship, but that was not what Summer was looking for. This
became a major problem in their relationship, dominating discussions. Circumscribing then
began to occur. Because it caused conflict, Tom began to stop bringing it up to Summer.
Stagnating and Avoiding are two stages the film does not go into detail much; if the film were
from Summer’s point of view, we would have seen more of that. The relationship does go
through the terminating stage, however. Summer breaks it to Tom that they should see other
people. While Summer does not feel bad about it, Tom is devastated and did not see it coming.
Throughout the film, there is a lot of nonverbal communication between Tom and
Summer, but this is especially prevalent when their relationship is coming to an end and after it
has ended. Summer used kinesics to show Tom that she was feeling distant from him. At one
point, Tom can tell that something was wrong with Summer while they are at the record store.
He tried to grab her hand, but she pulled away. Nonverbally and culturally, she was telling Tom
that she was uncomfortable in their relationship and currently unhappy. She then began walking
out of the store without Tom, leaving a large gap between them. This is portraying a lack of
closeness she feels. She is trying to distance herself from Tom. Towards the end of their
relationship, Summer also has a difficult time looking at Tom directly, unlike the beginning
when they would often steal glances with each other. Tom would ask Summer if something was
wrong, but she would look blankly ahead and respond that everything was fine. She was
nonverbally communicating that that was not the case; she did not feel comfortable telling Tom
the truth at that moment. There are many other nonverbally communicated messages between
Tom and Summer throughout the film, but towards the end of their relationship, they are most
prevalent and most meaningful.
After Summer suggests to Tom that they see other people, Tom is devastated; he begins
to go through Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief, something common for those who, like time,
are looking for an “Eros” type of intense love. Many studies have shown that for young adults,
romantic break-ups can lead to serious mental-health problems. Boelen and Reijntjes did a study
that found that anxiety and depression levels were much higher for those who had recently gone
through a romantic break-up (Boelen and Reijntjes 2008.) This is also true for Tom. The first
stage that the film portrays is the depression stage. Tom has a difficult time getting out of bed
and will not talk to his friends or family. He enters a state of depression and gives off the “flat
effect” where he seems like he does not care about anything. This stage soon rapidly changes.
The stage that is best portrayed by the film is the grief stage of anger. The simplest
things would set off Tom. For example, a couple walking down the street holding hands got
scream at to, “get a room,” by Tom. Before the break-up, Tom was thinking of greeting card
quote ideas for the whole office. After the break-up, Tom’s cards became rude and mean, like
the card that stated, “Roses are red, violets are blue, f*** you, whore.” He began stating that he
hated everything about Summer, which was false. He was only holding onto their relationship
and was bitter with her that she had felt it was necessary to end something that was so important
to Tom. Something that he believed to be a large part of his future was taken away from him
without warning, and he was angry about it.
Denial was also shown. When Tom’s boss questioned Tom’s recent mood change, Tom
denied even remembering Summer, much less having his depression be caused by her. When
seeing Summer again, Tom also pretended like everything was going to go back to normal; it did
not. When Tom discovered that Summer was now engaged to be married, he started to fall apart
again. The stages of grief started to come back around. This time, anger once again dominated.
Eventually, Tom got around to the acceptance stage. He started to work on achieving his
dream job after quitting the greeting card company in a bout of anger and bitterness. He was
studying architecture and putting his mind into his work, rather than constantly thinking of
Summer. He ran into Summer at the park they used to visit, they talked, and he finally received
his closure. He knew she was happy and could finally move on. Meeting a new girl, Autumn,
did also help Tom accept the fact that he and Summer were just not “meant to be.”
Tom and Summer had a tumultuous relationship filled with passion and, for Tom, love.
Those romantic relationships are filled with examples of interpersonal communication and
communication theories. Viewers were able to witness the relational stages of “coming
together” and “coming apart,” nonverbal communication in a romantic relationship, and even the
stages of grief. Interpersonal communication is a part of everyday life, but some people, like
Tom, are too infatuated with other things to pay attention to the meaning of this communication,
and that is a lesson that all viewers should take away from this film.
Works Cited
Boelen, P. A., & Reijntjes, A. (2009). Negative cognitions in emotional problems following
romantic relationship break-ups. Stress & Health: Journal Of The International Society
For The Investigation Of Stress, 25(1), 11-19. doi:10.1002/smi.1219