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Alternatively, they fall for her without knowing anything about her. Even with the growing emphasis to flesh out female characters in movies, the manic pixie dream girl trope continues to be present in cinematography. To this day, a handful of movies did their best to subvert the trope and offered some interesting variations as a result.
5 500 Days Of Summer
500 Days of Summer is a movie that made many viewers feel torn. The reason for this is simple: it doesn’t work with the characters and the story the way romantic movies often do. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Tom, a young man who falls for his new co-worker Summer, imagining their happily ever after. But even when they start dating, Tom refuses to see that Summer just wants something different from life. So when they inevitably break up, Tom’s the only one who’s truly surprised, not the audience.
At least in this scenario, Summer frees herself from the relationship in time and doesn’t seem all that bothered by it, proving that she’s much more than just the manic pixie dream girl who has to surrender all of her life to her partner. Tom, unfortunately, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to learn the lesson and by the end of the movie, and he seems ready to pursue yet another woman he will most likely idolize. However, this time around, her name isn’t Summer, but Autumn.
4 Annie Hall
Annie Hall is one of the most successful movies Woody Allen has ever directed, and also one that shows idealizing a woman to create a perfect picture is never a good idea. Annie shares some traits with the typical manic pixie dream girl, such as her quirkiness, but at the end of the day, she still comes across as a person with actual emotions who has other things going on for her than just showing her partner how wonderful or crazy life can be.
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Diane Keaton became a fashion icon thanks to this role, but there are many more facets of Annie’s character that are fascinating to discover as long as the audience looks away from the relationship between Annie and Alvy, played by Allen himself.
3 Interstate 60
Interstate 60 is one of the hidden gems that no fans of original movies should miss out on watching. James Marsden plays Neal Oliver, a young guy who doesn’t know what to do with life. Inspired by the mysterious wishes-fulfilling O.W. Grant (Gary Oldman), he sets out on a journey that will change his life and perhaps even lead him to the woman of his dreams that he’s been seeing around.
While Amy Smart appears in person only at the end of the movie, the story previously builds her up as this ideal, larger-than-life dream that Oliver is pursuing. But by the time when she shows up, it soon becomes clear that she’s just a human, and at one point, she was just as lost in life as Oliver. That makes her more relatable and also gives her character Lynn the type of backstory that manic pixie dream girls rarely ever get in movies.
2 Paper Towns
At first, Margo in Paper Towns might seem to be a typical manic pixie dream girl. She’s beautiful, funny, smart, and the girl that the main hero of the movie admires. But since they’ve grown apart, he began to idolize her. So, when Margo shows up one night and takes Quentin on an unforgettable adventure, it seems like she will only exist in the movie to motivate Quentin’s character change. Quentin spends a better part of the movie looking for Margo after she disappears and believes that she had left him a series of clues where he can find her.
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But once he actually manages to discover Margo, he realizes that she isn’t some ideal girl who will fall into his arms once they reunite. Instead, she’s a person with her own troubles, just like everybody else, which doesn’t make her any less amazing — but more real. So even though Paper Towns doesn’t have the type of idyllic ending usually associated with romantic comedies, the movie leaves a stronger impression thanks to its final plot twist.
1 Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
When the shy Scott meets the beautiful and mysterious Ramona, he quickly falls for her. The only problem is that, in order to be able to date Ramona, he has to defeat her evil exes first. Scott takes them on, but as the story progresses, it becomes clear that neither Scott nor Ramona know the other person as much as people who are dating should know each other. So by the time the finale rolls around, it’s not clear whether Ramona and Scott will stay together.
Luckily for the audience who might be disappointed by this, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World more than makes up for it thanks to its unique sense of humor, visual qualities and a strong cast full of known names, such as Chris Evans, Brie Larson, and Kieran Culkin.
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