Watch at Gateway Film Center on January 2, 2017
Comedy is an art. There are comedies that are performed through the body movements of the characters, and there are also comedies that are stacked and pave the way through contradictions, and finally burst into laughter. But at present, our market is more of a kind of "violent comedy": by violently piling up elements that make people laugh, and using a lot of tri-vulgar content to obtain comedy effects. The level of this kind of comedy generally depends on whether the joke is bold or not, whether it is novel or not, dare to break through the limits of the three views and censorship.
"Why him" (Why him) is an R-rated comedy titled "Love". The R grade explains the boldness of its content and also explains the nature of the laugh in advance. Presented in front of the audience is a protagonist who doesn't like to wear clothes and is full of swear words. The conflict with him is a traditional middle-aged man with a small career.
This film is funny, not funny, funny. As long as the audience is open and not as conservative as the heroine's father, they will definitely laugh. But these are unskilled "laughing points": the male protagonist kisses me with his mother-in-law, making his father-in-law angry, and the audience laughs; the male protagonist talks with his underage brother-in-law and the audience laughs; the father-in-law is forced to The audience laughed after witnessing the indescribable behavior between the daughter and the boyfriend; the male lead fell into the urine tank and the audience laughed... But looking at the violent laughter, there is nothing worth remembering. This is a low-level comedy. But you can't deny his success. After all, everyone is laughing in the hall where I am-even if it is stacked violently, it has achieved the effect of theory. Considering a lot of embarrassing comedies that make people unable to laugh, this is already a successful popcorn work, and it can let those "innocent" people have a good time.
The biggest shortcoming of this film is actually the rush of the later plot, that is, the change of father-in-law. Brainy viewers will feel that the father-in-law's transformation is inexplicable. In fact, until his father-in-law's family returned to Michigan, there was no "reconciliation" between him and his son-in-law. The film puts the final explanation on the male protagonist's "honesty", that is, he is a pure and honest person, even if there are so many conflicts with his father-in-law, he still keeps his promise and did not propose to his girlfriend. At the risk of her girlfriend being angry, she sent her home because she felt that the family should be together. However, there is still such a scene in the film. After the father-in-law returned to his hometown, he found that his friends and colleagues were in his room, celebrating the company’s revival, and all of this was derived from the Christmas gift his son-in-law gave him. Huge sums of all debts. The final ending is also in the name of innovation, with the help of the son-in-law, the father-in-law's family made a comeback. No matter how you look at it, it's all "Since you can't control your daughter, just sell your daughter along the way."
The potential and most dissatisfied part of this film is its interpretation of the "father-daughter relationship". Usually, this kind of drama about father-in-law and son-in-law actually discusses the relationship between father and daughter. There are many famous sayings in the world about daughters and fathers. And when the daughter gets married, this kind of "another man comes to take the pearl in his palm" has become the subject of many works. The crisis faced by the father in the movie is that she thinks she knows everything about her daughter, but finds that she knows nothing. Not only did she have a boyfriend, the two have lived together for more than a year, and she even wants to drop out of Stanford. Run a foundation invested by his boyfriend. The daughter from childhood to eldest has become so far away, he has no idea why he chose this man as his partner. Anyone is good, why is it just this man?
However, in the later stages of the film, the interpretation of this father-daughter relationship became more and more strange. The anger of the father-in-law seems to come from his daughter's failure to follow the path he designed, and the destruction of his life's work. The daughter attributed her father's desire not to drop out of school to "I can go to Stanford is the pride of my father's life, and that I drop out of school means that his pride has failed." In the end, he didn't drop out as if it was just to satisfy his father's ideas and not to let him down. On this level, the daughter becomes a possession, and all contradictions seem to come only from the father’s "dissatisfaction." But any viewer who understands the family will understand that there are deeper concerns behind his father's refusal. Not out of his own taste, but worry about the future of his daughter.
Innovation is a good thing, but how many innovative companies are exhausted and cannot develop later; operating a foundation is a good thing, but once this man abandons you, what can you do if you don’t even have a college degree? Even though he has all kinds of advantages, the man presented to me is uneducated, playful and bothered. Although empiricism is not entirely desirable, parents who walk more than you eat salt have seen so many stories about eachother at the beginning but ended in tragedy. When you are in love, love is supreme. Young you are full of spirits, but such an impulse will seal your retreat and make it difficult for you to move in the future. Abandoning the father's consideration of his daughter, the film created a stubborn and conservative old man, attributed all conflicts to the old and new conflicts, to correspond to the theme of finally allowing the son to innovate and the older generation retreating to the second line. It can be said that in terms of the interpretation of the family or father-daughter relationship, this film is a very failure.
But this did not affect my evaluation of the film, because there is no "family" in its label, it is just a typical Christmas popcorn movie. As long as you put aside the morals, open your heart, and put your mind down, you can have a very interesting time. It is also very interesting to see the various crazy looks of an old gentleman like Brian Cranston.
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