A Chronological Timeline


I have no life. That is the only reason for the length of this post, and I freely admit it. Anyhow...

Over the years, random fans have made chronological timelines for this movie, but with varying levels of thoroughness. I finally decided to map it out myself with my most recent viewing, and it really helped define my thoughts on the movie, which always seem to be evolving.

DAY 1: January 8, 2006 - Tom sees Summer for the first time as she's introduced in the department meeting. Instantly smitten.
DAY 3: January 10, 2006 - Summer is declared a bitch by the office grapevine, and Tom seems pretty neutral about it. Makes sense, as he doesn't know her yet.
DAY 4: January 11, 2006 - The elevator ride. We discover that the heroine shares his musical tastes and can sing. Hero doubly smitten. Onward.
DAY 8: January 15, 2006 - Office party for Millie's engagement, though the wedding doesn't happen for another year (see DAY 402). Tom and Summer finally have their first real conversation, successfully covering the exposition bases about Summer's move to LA and a little bit of Tom's history.
DAY 11: January 18, 2006 - Wii tennis with Rachel.
DAY 22: January 29, 2006 - Tom declares that it's off, though he's really just too chicken to ask her out. Even as a girl, I've been guilty of this myself. I like a guy, I drop clues, I have this beautiful, perfect vision of how the relationship will pan out, then try to act all cool once I realize he isn't responding to anything I'm doing.
DAY 27: February 3, 2006 - "The whole office is going..."
DAY 28: February 4, 2006 - Karaoke night. McKenzie outs Tom on his crush. Summer is more amused by it than anything, but her interest in him is finally visible.
DAY 31: February 7, 2006 - And that's probably why she kisses him in the copy room three days later. And goes to his apartment after work, then to dinner with him. The first official day of their romance, I suppose.
DAY 34: February 10, 2006 - IKEA, when things were so fresh and playful. Then sex. Sex on the fourth day of the relationship? I must be really old-fashioned.
DAY 45: February 21, 2006 - Two weeks in and they're talking and laughing on their cell phones at work, despite being 20 feet from each other. Ah, the silly things new couples do.
DAY 87: April 4, 2006 - Record store and shower sex. The movie skipped March completely, but we can safely assume our couple has only grown closer. Still playful and fun.
DAY 95: April 12, 2006 - Tom shows Summer some of the great architecture around town. I love this stage of their relationship, where they're just quietly in tune with each other. This is also their first time on the bench together, and both bench scenes have this soft, whimsical quality that I love.
DAY 109: April 26, 2006 - Tom's first time in Summer's apartment. Very telling that she was at his place on day 1 of their romance, but it takes him 2.5 months to see her place.
DAY 118: May 5, 2006 - Still going steady, though Tom's starting to question what they are. He goes to Rachel's soccer game and gets a pep talk there before driving somewhere with Summer, back in downtown LA. She sweeps his uncertainty under the rug, where it will fester later. Dun dun DUN...
DAY 154: June 10, 2006 - Tom's "I love Summer" montage.
DAY 167: June 23, 2006 - "I love us." Both still on Cloud 9.
DAY 191: July 17, 2006 - Art gallery date, followed by the movies. This is the only transition scene we get, the only scene that isn't completely their puppy love stage or their distance stage. They've been together several months and are probably bored of their usual routine, but can still have fun together.
DAY 259: September 23, 2006 - Bar fight. Big jump. We can only conclude that Summer has gotten increasingly bored with Tom, as she's only half-heartedly listening to him now. Somehow, she went from comfortable to disinterested in these two months. They made up and went to the park the next day ("Penis" game), showing that they can still get along, but the relationship is definitely different.
DAY 282: October 16, 2006 - IKEA, this time not so fresh and playful. In the month since the bar fight, they haven't managed to recapture their old magic.
DAY 290: October 24, 2006 - The movies (The Graduate), record store again, and finally, the breakup over pancakes. It was an 8-month romance.
DAY 303: November 6, 2006 - Tom receives the e-mail o' doom from Summer. It's that awkward post-breakup stage, where you try to act like friends and keep in touch. Such a horrible stage.
DAY 314: November 17, 2006 - Tom sees the French movie alone, still depressed.
DAY 321: November 24, 2006 - Tom is moved to the Sympathy department. His depression has lasted exactly 1 month now.
DAY 322: November 25, 2006 - "I hate Summer" montage.
DAY 345: December 18, 2006 - Blind date. Two months since the breakup and Tom is only slightly more functional.
DAY 402: February 13, 2007 - Train ride to Millie's wedding. Four months since the breakup and Tom seems to be his old self again. Sees Summer on the train, however, and immediately reverts back to schoolboy mentality. They rediscover their friendly, easy chemistry, which I thought was nice.
DAY 408: February 19, 2007 - Rooftop party. Sometime in the 7 days since Millie's wedding, Summer's new boyfriend has proposed to her, and she's accepted. (But even if she started dating him in, say, November, after she broke up with Tom, that still only puts them in their fourth month together. *whistle* When you know, you know, I guess. That was the point, right? :D)
DAY 440: March 23, 2007 - Tom's alcohol and junk food binge, even though it's been a month since he found out about Summer's engagement. Has he been in this state for a month?
DAY 441: March 24, 2007 - Alcohol and junk food binge continued.
DAY 442: March 25, 2007 - Tom quits New Hampshire Greetings.
DAY 450: April 2, 2007 - Tom goes to one of Rachel's soccer practices for another pep talk. Still pretty down, but he's found some solace in sketching again. Let the healing begin.
DAY 456 - DAY 476: April 8 - April 28, 2007 - Job search. At some point in these days, Summer's wedding occurs.
DAY 488: May 11, 2007 - The second and final bench scene. I think it happened, I don't think it was Tom's imagination, but to each their own. I thought it was a great conversation, and a necessary one for both Tom and the audience.
DAY 500: May 23, 2007 - Autumn. Finally.

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Thanks, excellent work.
How did you get the exact dates, when do they specify the timeline?
Very helpful actually.
And he met summer, in the Winter and broke up with her in the fall.
He meets Autumn in the spring... I had not noticed that before.

I don't know if this is planned but the bar scene, for which you stated "Somehow, she went from comfortable to disinterested in these two months" was about Sept 23, which was on the official end of summer (the autumn equinox), 2006, lol.
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RIGOLETTO: I'm denied that common human right, to weep.

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The narrator states that Tom met Autumn on Wednesday, May 23rd, and the last time that happened was 2007. So it's been "fanonized" for a while now that if the 500th day was May 23, 2007, then counting backwards, the first day must have been January 8, 2006. From there, I just used the numbered days to get the date. It's a bit counter-intuitive at first, since it's integer counting, not quantity.

I have thought about this way too much, LOL.

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Wow, great work, thanks. I, for one, appreciate your hard work on this matter.

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RIGOLETTO: I'm denied that common human right, to weep.

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Its funny for a film set initially in a greeting card company, they avoided almost all of the possible major greeting card dates.
No scenes on Christmas, New years, July 4th, Valentines day, Halloween, Mothers Day.

they even missed the Summer solstice by 2 days -- when he had the "I love us. -- Cloud 9", day. Not that there are greetings cards for the solstice that I know of, but it is the official beginning of Summer (I have been known to send happy solstice messages by email, lol).

Assuming you got the exact dates correct, the "I hate Summer montage" was done on the thanksgiving weekend, which seems intentionally ironic ("hatesgiving")
and according to your time scheme, his job search started on April 8 which was Easter in 2007 -- his resurrection?

and as noted in a previous post, the bar fight scene was on the last day of Summer, 2006 (the equinox -- again, I don't know of greeting cards for that day, but I do send people the occasion happy equinox messages by email, lol).

Or maybe I'm digging too deeply. LOL.


ps. you report a scene on May 5, but they're not Hispanic so I don't think that counts (and do they have greeting cards for Cinco-de-Mayo).


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RIGOLETTO: I'm denied that common human right, to weep.

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I thought that myself at one point. They never showed any holidays or other milestones in the year.

And see, this is the beauty of sharing, because I never even realized the bigger symbolism that you touched on, i.e. Tom meeting Summer in the winter and Autumn in the spring. And the bar fight being on the last day of summer 2006! I wonder if that's an amazing fluke, or if the writers planned that.

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It could be a fluke, but given the amount of thought they put into it, I'm willing to bet it was planned.

I like the fact that they didn't peg things to holidays because it gave the film a timeless quality, even though everything was numbered.

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RIGOLETTO: I'm denied that common human right, to weep.

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[deleted]

No accounting for taste, but they did the scrambled order to illustrate his the fragmented understanding of their relationship and his own broken heart. Beautifully done. Yes its a simple story... most stories are simple. ITs the beauty of how they did it, that is the art of the film.

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Great post. And I think that the scrambled timeline adds quite a lot of value, by juxtaposing moments at different phases of a relationship and seeing the contrast. Also, in a way I think it's how we remember our own lives sometimes, when we're thinking back -- not all in order, but a bit of back and forth, a mixture of stream of consciousness freedom and trying to figure things out maybe.

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very true


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RIGOLETTO: I'm denied that common human right, to weep.

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Nice work, really puts things in perspective and it'd be interesting to see if the film could hold up if someone cut together the scenes chronologically.

What bothers me is the clear continuity and logical errors with the dates. With five hundred days to work from, they should've gotten stuff such as days correct. Karaoke night is said to be a Friday in the film, yet it matches up to a Saturday in real life. The first day is also a Sunday, and it would be bizarre for a greeting card company to have a meeting on a Sunday, and I also believe it's stated in the film that Thursdays are the days for meetings.

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Thank you for doing this. It's such a brilliant bit of chronology that it deserves to be bumped.

P.S. This would be a fun movie to watch on "shuffle".

I don't like sticky.

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I know I'm late for this one but on day 303 when Tom gets an e-mail from Summer it says "Wednesday, May 07, 2008" in the date-field (34:13 in the movie).

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So, tnis a very late addition! But reading this thread has got me thinking... Maybe this film is a little bit in the vein of the modernists (i think the 1920s?) for example, Virginia Woolf. Where time is not linear, but is presented as people think, fragmented and dodging between past/ present/ future.
It also shows different pov's and ways of looking at the same situation. There is no one 'truth'. But Tom and Summer where both very set in their ways of seeing life/ love. I think they both learnt to be more flexible!

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I meant post-modernism, not modernism!

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Interesting. The Ikea bit happened earlier in the relationship than I had expected.

Unless Alpert's covered in bacon grease, I don't think Hugo can track anything.

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