I think it's safe to assume, this story wouldn't have worked with a linear narrative. For me, (500) Days of Summer is a coming of age story about a shallow guy who becomes highly attracted to a pretty girl who is reflecting his own shallowness. From the first moment on, their relationship is a struggle and in the end, neither of them learns anything valuable. That's the beauty of this story and the reason why it holds a lot of value to our modern society. Tom goes on a hero's journey, but returns without an elixir. Instead, we as the audience realize what he could have learned. In the same respect, Summer doesn't learn anything, she just moves on while Tom doesn't. We don't know if she's really happy, because we can't look inside her head. The story lives from the setup and payoffs that are beautifully woven together and the simplicity of the ending is just fascinating. We expect this new episode to follow the same stages of his previous journey - unless Tom is able to break out of the cycle and become a man, realizing what true love is about and acting upon it. He still has all the chances in the world and that's the hopeful spirit we leave the movie with.

I got a different take on this. There are so many references to the 60s (the music, her haircut, The Graduate), I wondered if the movie wasn't doing what Ephron was doing with Sleepless In Seattle -- messing with the audience's perception of love as it's altered by film. He's very much in love with love, as Will was, but she's the one moved to tears when a movie sparks the ache of wanting to fall in love and have the real deal. I also wondered if this was non-linear or syncopated time, couplets out of rhyme. First we see it as he romanticizes their dating, then we go back and see the "signs" that she just wasn't that into him. His going back into the career path of architecture he had ignored, to me, represented something of enduring substance, solid with a foundation. When they do meet again, she says he was right, some things are meant to be. What if she'd done something different that day or gotten to the coffee shop 10 minutes later? Would she have met the true love of her life, not the young lover crush she played "penis" with in the park? He's taken her view of not believing in fate and destiny by the time he's at that final interview. The narrator makes it clear that it's the month of May, which is the cusp of Spring, yet he meets a young woman named Autumn. The petals are falling off Summer's bloom and he's moving into maturity. He's attracted to her and sets up a date, despite them competing for the same job. That's a pretty mature thing to do. She may take away the last job left for him to go after, but he's no longer a little boy who can't handle something like that. Maybe. Will the next step be learning to love when someone takes away your last chance at creative expression? It's a good script and an even better movie, made all that much better because the viewer can get what they need out of it. It drew me very deeply into the ache and stupidity of love, as well as the resistance and incomprehension of love. I'm in total agreement with Sven's take on the script and see exactly where he's coming from, yet it had a different effect on me. That's writing at its best, or what I consider the best. Take me on a journey, but don't make me travel in a cage.