Confusions of a dangerous mind: Jesse vs. Summer

There is uncanny similarity between the two films - (500) days of summer and Vinnaithandi Varuvaya (Tamil). Both are love stories narrated from a boy's point of view. In both the films, the boys, from whose viewpoint the story is being told are entirely sure of their love for the woman. And in both the stories, since its the guy's viewpoint, the women come across as confused, and stereotypically 'hard to fathom'.Both base their stories with contemporary relationships as their landscape. Its probably a universal confusion with women, and perhaps even men...'Its hard to say no to someone who loves you so much, but its harder to say yes'. No wonder the women go out to explore the relationships but dont stay with the men in the end.

Incidentally, both the films were released almost simultaneously, and  across two culturally very dissimilar parts of the world. And these very same cultural differences, bring out the differences in the way the choices were made by both the women. Summer, highly individualistic and independent, makes her choice, is sure of it and takes responsibility for it..in the end, she knows she did not love him enough to marry him. With Jesse, its more complicated, I couldn't really figure out if she decided not to marry the guy because of family, her father and for the sake of his social pressures or if she just used that as a reason, in her head and otherwise..because deep down she thought it wasnt the love worth fighting so much for? She is courageous, because she walked out of her marriage, and confronted her family, and confessed about being in love with somebody else...but also made the choice of not marrying her guy in the end, but marry someone her parents wished her to. Interesting to see Sheena Iyengar's theory of how our choice making process depends on where we come from, come alive through these two films, which are so similar, but for where they are set, which contributes to all the differences.While an individualistic society offers more choice, and the responsibility of making the choice lies with you, a collective society poses a lot of different external variables, and there is a lot of possibilities that one can play with, consciously and sub - consciously!