——JD Salinger "The Heart of Broken Story"
seems to have once again confirmed that "a movie with a child's perspective is not bad." Although the child Henry is not the absolute center of the story here, this perspective is open to question. This question will be mentioned later.
I want to talk about the love in the story first.
I saw the question that day, "When did Adele fall in love with Frank"? The answer I guess is "while feeding her something". Because this is a process of incomparable intimacy-sitting next to each other, careful blowing to cool down, indirect gentle contact, and dodge eye contact. It is also because the director deliberately flashed back the discussion of sex between mother and child in Henry's peeping eyes (in fact, it is not a discussion, the children are too shy~)-"People pretend to blame sex on hormonal reactions and physical needs. In all In discussions about body instincts and hormones, they forgot to mention what it feels like. That is another kind of hunger—the hunger and desire to be touched by others. People never tell you that. What kind of a feeling of desire is like". I can't help but think of another Adele, the one in "Adele's Life" and a lot of scenes of her eating. Hunger is a pun, food is desire.
Is this desire love in the end?
Generally, when the love of the hero and heroine in a movie is built in a certain context, even if I am moved, I can't help thinking "Is this true love after all". For "Labor Day", this background is the emptiness and loneliness of Adele and Frank's status as a fugitive. They have too many reasons to use each other and put on the cloak of love for this use. But I rarely and without doubt firmly believe that these five days are enough to make them love each other deeply. The reason is probably from my most mundane perspective, love is sex, marriage, a kiss at six in the morning, a child, a sweet peach pie made by hand, a dance, a baseball game in the sun, It’s the barbecue lunch you made your shopping list... He is a husband and a father. He is a woman’s support and a role model for her children while repairing houses and cars. He completes the lives of the cuddling mother and child. This is a kind of existence that transcends the romantic love that makes me suspicious. This is home, what love and happiness should be.
But love wants to touch and withdraw her hand again. So when the escape failed, Frank could only tie them as gently as possible. Since then, he will not accept visits, reply to letters, or even read letters.
Fortunately, despite being late for 25 years, there is always a happy ending.
This love made me have the urge to give it five stars when I just watched the film, and after a night of calmness and precipitation, we said back to the problem mentioned at the beginning.
Taking a child as the perspective is not helpful for the film's narrative. The director is undoubtedly deliberately discussing the proposition about growth, thus introducing the role of precocious girl, but unfortunately it is not deep enough. Not only that, the flashbacks of Frank's past and Adele's past pains, including the shaping of his ex-husband's role, cannot be said to be completely useless in the story, but it also makes the theme of the film more mixed.
In addition, the question "When did Frank fall in love with Adele" I read it over and over again and I still haven't found the answer. Welcome to discuss :).
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