This is the most empathetic movie I've seen in a while. I don't have any common experience with the heroine in the film. It was the superb acting skills of the hero and heroine that brought me into the scene and felt the same way.
emotion and performance
The veins and changes of the heroine's feelings are clearly expressed in the performance from beginning to end. From the very beginning, the hero and heroine have a sweet relationship. The heroine is willing to show her vulnerable side to her husband and seek her husband's support during childbirth. At that time, her facial expressions and voice were much softer. I didn't even dare to watch her when she gave birth. The pain conveyed through the screen made me restless.
In the middle of the movie, the heroine has some strong spirits. We can see that the heroine is the type of independent woman. Her sadness for the death of her newborn child is only revealed when she is alone. In most situations, she just hides her feelings and tries her best to protect her judgment. The same goes for her husband, who was crying in front of her, showing her soft parts, and she just closed her door and didn't let anyone in. During this time, the heroine mostly did not show any expressions, but in the details, the way she carefully ate apples (at the end we learned that the biggest impression she left on the child was that she smelled like apples), Mantha's occasional hesitation and In a trance, she often loses her mind, so that the audience can fully appreciate her thoughts.
In the second half of the film, under the pressure of her mother, she also began to gradually show her feelings. She finally expressed her thoughts, believing that her mother was ashamed of her, that she was not able to complete the work of childbirth well, and that her mother only cared about other people's opinions and not her own feelings for all her actions in letting her go to court. The feelings that were suppressed by almost two-thirds of the length burst out more powerfully at this moment. Even so, it's not hysterical, but with a little restraint. The mother's role, like her almost mirror image, has always maintained a restrained attitude from the beginning to the present, and the mother's feelings only erupted at this moment. The mother said what she really thought: she just wanted her daughter to be strong in the face of all this, and she felt that it would be an escape if she did not go to court. Linking my personal experience here, what I understand is the daughter's habitual understanding of the purpose of her mother's behavior. Because of the conflict between the daughter and her mother in the past, she subconsciously felt that her mother's actions were all for the sake of face, and the mother did not understand herself, did not respect her decision, and did not care about her own feelings. As for the mother in this major event (the granddaughter died), she actually did not have malicious intentions, but from Mantha's point of view, she wanted to make her daughter strong and seek justice for herself.
In the final court, when Mantha defended the midwife aunt, she said that she felt that the midwife aunt had no malicious intentions, and she did her best to keep the child, and she did not want the malice to be conveyed to the midwife aunt. In fact, I think this sentence also applies to her mother to a certain extent: her mother is not malicious, she thinks that her daughter is avoiding conflict, not bravely facing the setbacks in life, her starting point is good, and she wants Mantha Be brave, but she doesn't understand Mantha. Mantha has actually faced all of this bravely. The reason why she did not want to go to court was finally fully stated in the public court: she did not want her daughter's death to be punished by others and compensated by money. She did not want her daughter to be born with malice. At this time, the mother also understood Mantha, and a smile appeared on the faces of the two of them.
So in fact, I don't really agree with some of the views of other film critics here. For example, the mother and daughter did not reconcile in the end, and the conflict will always exist. On the contrary, I think it is here that they understand each other. Where is the problem? It can be said to be communication, but it is not all communication. Mantha and her mother had communicated before, but they didn't understand each other. Only when they went to court did they really eliminate the estrangement. I think it is more about the growth and experience of the two people together, so that they know that the words in each other's mouth are not just words, but the true feelings of the mother/daughter.
The male protagonist's performance is just as good. In a city like Boston, when his partner's family is a middle-to-high-productivity high-level intellectual family, his fragility, inferiority complex, and strength are all vividly displayed. Sean took care of his wife from the very beginning when he was giving birth, wanted to rely on his wife, to the sadness when the child just died, exposed all his weakness, slammed the door, and cried to Martha. Sean's big beard hinders the actor's emotional interpretation to some extent, and some expressions cannot be displayed particularly well, but it will make us pay more attention to his eyes and add a layer of alienation. What impressed me most was that he sneered when he got the check. Sean's previous emotional foreshadowing made me instantly understand his feelings at that time: the disdain he finally showed when he looked down on his mother, and the moment finally came. Powerless, for Martha's recognition that he still can't get the approval of his mother, and he still can't climb up the intellectual family after all, and finally feel that it is better to take the money and leave, so let's just give up. Maybe at this time his strings finally broke, and he felt that it was not worth it.
Story and Editing
I really like the pacing of the director's cut, with some long takes. At the beginning of the childbirth bathtub, the camera followed Sean into the bathroom first, and then a close-up on the face of the female protagonist, the male protagonist went out, and when the camera moved to the hand of the female protagonist, it was found that their hands were already tightly clasped together . This shot feels very smart and smooth. While retaining the integrity of the shot, it also allows the actors' performances to be displayed on the screen to the greatest extent possible. At the same time, the story is clearly told, and even has some suspense flavors.
The second is the mother-daughter conflict, at Martha's mother's house. The male protagonist and his brother-in-law have been chatting, talking about some or not. At this time, the camera followed the female protagonist and went out alone. In the distance, the silhouette of a female protagonist was outlined by the sunlight backlight. The voice was always in the background, and the volume did not decrease. , The distance and voice of the camera and the heroine immediately reflect the alienation of the heroine and the family, as well as the family's incomprehension of the heroine and the loneliness of her stomach battle. Finally, when we talked about the child, the heroine came back, and the arrangement of the camera made this story very natural, capturing Martha's emotional changes from beginning to end.
Finally, there are close-ups of the shots that the director often inserts. Such as close-ups of Martha sniffing apples, shots of eating apples, close-ups of throats, etc. When I first saw it, I could only feel that the heroine was often distracted and absent-minded, and I could feel her pain. Even if it seemed calm on the surface, her mind was always on the child who died. The whole person seems to be out of this world. At the end, the heroine said that her child smelled like apples, and all her obsessions with apples made the audience suddenly realize, and realized the heroine's thoughts of the child from beginning to end. and pain.
The lengths of the shots are long and short, and when the lights are gloomy or sunny, they correspond to the emotions of the protagonists and the direction of the plot. Personally, I especially like the rhythm of this movie, which is heavy but not depressing.
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