It lost in the word restraint, restrained performance, restrained script, restrained marketing.
OSCAR has been nominated for an Oscar, and "The Erased Boy" hasn't received any results, but considering that even "Black Panther" can win seven nominations, there is nothing to discuss about the authority of this year, right.
Whether it is adapted from a screenplay, directed or performed, "The Erased Boy" is definitely eligible to be nominated (it is a different matter if it wins an award). Especially Lucas Hedges and Nicole Kidman as the male lead and female lead, the director gave them classic shots worthy of appearing on the nomination screen.
There are too many passages in "The Erased Boy" that can be made into gimmicky shots. Jared's bedroom was raped, Cameron's suicide, Jared came out with his family for the first time... But the whole movie was watched, the director However, Joel Edgerton has always firmly controlled his emotions at a relatively surging but not excessively consuming audience empathy level.
Perhaps this is the reason why it could not get too much volume and Oscar nominations. It lost the word restraint, restrained performance, restrained script, restrained marketing (think about how powerful the marketing of "The Last Night on Earth" is. ).
But as long as you sit quietly and slowly taste, the emotional ups and downs behind the restraint will be easily perceivable, and I believe you will like this 114 minutes of restraint.
Especially compared to the memoir of the same name published in 2016, the movie version can be said to be quite beautifully adapted. Compared with its literary value, the realistic meaning of the memoir "The Erased Boy" is stronger.
Without discussing the writing, structure, and style of the book, the author Garrard Conley directly disclosed in considerable detail the Christian organization Love in Action ( Now it is renamed Restoration Path), which is the first time that a heated discussion on this social phenomenon has been strongly exposed in the media.
LIA ’s exposure and detailed descriptions have exposed sexual orientation correction treatment institutions that have always existed in the LGBTQ process but have not been discussed due to various reasons. They put sexual orientation in the same dimension as alcohol and drugs for discussion and treatment. Believing that sexual orientation is the same as the latter two behaviors is bad, should be ashamed of, and can be treated.
As the "Weekly Report" evaluated, this work has built a bridge of communication between those areas that think (homosexual) correction therapy is "a natural and reasonable choice" and "this behavior is simply unimaginable". , Breaking the geographical barrier between this social phenomenon.
In recent years, more and more film and television works have positively condemned and exposed such therapeutic organizations.
In the ninth season of "Will and Grace", Jack's grandson was forcibly sent to the bridge of the "Straight Arrow Camp", which is a very obvious irony of this phenomenon (the two who play the corrective officers are Jane Lynch and Andrew Rannells) , A Lala and gay hahaha). Coincidentally, "Mistaken Education" starring Super Killer in early 2018 also talked about the same theme.
The film version of Joel Edgerton's (adapted) self-directed and self-acted does not put corrective treatment under the spotlight of condemnation as strongly and positively as in "Mistaken Education". It may be due to the fact that the current legalization of same-sex marriage has gradually followed With the advancing of time and steadily consolidating, the homosexual correction institution exposed in the novel at that time is losing its living soil step by step, and there is a kind of calmness of the poor.
The moving part of the movie version is that while exposing this corrective mechanism, it leaves a lot of space to explore the emotions and relationships of the characters in the story, which to a large extent complements the original novel because of the author’s various reasons. The delicate emotions that can be conveyed and the integrity of the story.
And this kind of emotional impact in the face of conflicts and different beliefs cannot be overstated, because no matter how big the contradiction is, only by returning to the big theme of love to think and consider, will it be done as much as possible. Make the right decision.
As Nancy played by Nicole Kidman said,
I love God, God loves me, I love my son, it's that simple. For your father (as a pastor), it's a bit complicated.
This sentence also conveys the original intention and attitude of the director of the adaptation.
On the basis of the original novel, Joel Edgerton will focus more on the character's emotional portrayal, and uncritically restore the identity of "gay". Under the traction of society and religion, everyone is very different. Attitudes and life choices.
It involves not only Jared's parents, but also Jon, Cameron, Gary and Henry who are also troubled by their sexual orientation, and even the orthopedic therapist/ pastor Vicor Sykes himself.
Whether it is a novel or a film adaptation, the director and the original author expose such an inhumane corrective organization, and at the same time, they clearly avoid directing the finger at those individuals who serve these organizations indiscriminately.
Even the director himself played such a character who is extremely easy to be considered the root of all evil-Victor Sykes, the soul of Love in Action, who claims to be a psychotherapist but does not have any medical qualifications.
He lacks the clinical qualifications of psychotherapy at all. He has no idea how much trauma the treatment system he believes and vigorously promote will have on the psychology of these patients, and these injuries can sometimes evolve into irreversible and serious consequences.
They hire homophobics with criminal history as the main lecturer for corrective education. At the same time, the staff in the organization themselves have very serious sexual orientation confusion. Even Victor himself is a contradictory body that cannot face his own sexual orientation. The actual Victor Sykes left the LIA organization in 2008 and now lives in Texas with his husband. (????? Spicy chicken?????)
It is also a correction institution. Victor Sykes is not the same as Yang Yongxin, a young Chinese electric shock internet addicted teenager. The former truly believes that his treatment system is helpful to the person being treated (he may have received such treatment himself), while the latter is more. It is to make money with sinister heart and ignorance of conscience.
Compared with the inner conflicts of the staff of the agency, those treated with different mental states may present us with a more interesting space for discussion. Jon, who was successfully brainwashed, refused to touch any male limbs. Cameron, who was weak-willed, struggled with his own desires and the shame of treatment-enhanced. Gary did not believe in the concept of treatment but was forced to join the project with his own complete set of integration theory. He felt that these treatments were meaningless and abnormal, but he did not have the power to defend his sexual orientation.
There are also the family members of the "patients" who blindly believe in the effects of treatment and are brainwashed, who account for the majority. The violence that these people inflict on the treated is more than that of authoritative lecturers in the institution.
Everyone has their own set of rules of survival. For those who cannot get along with themselves in this contradiction, death seems to be an inevitable choice.
Naturally, Cameron became the most tragic victim in this belief system, and also the last straw that overwhelmed Jared's relationship with his father.
In the novel, although the author described several same-sex characters around him with a lot of brushstrokes, it did not leave a deep impression on people. It feels like the author himself-even after he has grown up, it seems that he has not clearly expressed the influence of these people on him.
The story structure in the original novel is extremely loose, constantly jumping in LIA and his various past experiences, readers can fully understand the author's formal and LIA, and the family before the break with the important people who have encountered important influences, including first love Chloe, rape Henry, who forced him out of the closet, Gary in LIA, etc.
But this kind of review has almost no bias or logic, let alone a thorough analysis and understanding of the influence of these people on him. At best, it is just a list of experiences, almost close to a private diary. Talking to himself.
This method of processing also occurred on the author’s description of LIA's experience, so even if the two continue to intersect, in the final climax of the novel-Jared's departure from LIA still seems quite abrupt, because the front lacks a reasonable emotional foreshadowing. , As if this rupture was just a temporary event, not a behavior that caused a quantitative change to cause a qualitative change. This caused the novel to appear rushed and jumpy at the end of the novel.
But the movie version makes up for the shortcomings of the novel through the performance of the actors and the polishing of details.
In particular, it strengthened the role of Nicole Kidman's mother, Nancy, and formed a strong contrast and reaction with Russell Crowe's father Marshall.
From the different reactions of Jared when she came out for the first time to the fact that she has been accompanying her son to participate in the correction project, carefully reading and thinking about the correctness of the correction materials (the details of the typos in the promotional materials are designed quite well), continue to pave the way to the end in LIA Emotional explosion confronts Victor (the representative of authority), slow-paced but in one go, complete and explosive.
In addition, putting your hand outside the car window to cause the mother and child to discuss the details has increased rather happily and handled properly. It has the effect of two or two strokes, which will reflect the relationship between the mother and child under the drastic changes in the family to be real and full of emotions. Four years later, my mother (I don't know where I found it) sent a traffic accident news, "Did you see it? I want to listen to my mother", the parents' clumsy caution, which is almost wordy but full of love.
Respect and love are always so easy to make people smile from the heart.
Nicole Kidman, who has a bright appearance, is very convincing when acting as a mother, and the mother-child relationship with Lucas should not be too strong.
While the Queen Oscar combination Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman contributed impeccable performances, the new generation of Lucas Hedges has a super exciting level of performance in front of the predecessors. Especially the campus rape scene, together with Joe Alwyn, created a highlight moment of the film (the other is Nancy's determination and questioning Victor when LIA rescued Jared).
The college student who was in tears in the shadow of the moonlight outside the window didn't even win an Oscar nomination for Lucas, what a pity.
Joe Alwyn's cameo is also quite amazing.
I have to admire Ang Lee’s vision of choosing an actor. Joe Alwyn has a very unique film lens texture. The feelings exuded in the scene are completely different. Even the face, body and expression on the lens have produced different changes. . In entertainment news, interviews, and sneak shots, Joe Alwyn is no different from ordinary British teenagers (except for being extremely tall), but once he enters the role, he completely becomes an actor who is born for performance without eating human fireworks. This It is very rare.
There are many young actors who are unable to withdraw from their lives due to their experience and private life. No matter what role they play, they have a strong sense of entertainment. Timothee Chalamet is one of the most obvious representatives.
It is undeniable that the image matching between him and Armie Hammer has become one of the important factors in "Please call me by your name" that has swept the world. Therefore, it has also been favored by thousands of girls, and it is more popular than the young actors of the same period. For example, the gap between Lucas Hedges and Joe Alwyn is not one level or two.
But if he thinks that his performance is the key to the success of the film, this is a bit blind.
At least for me, it was not him or Armie Hammer that made me re-watch "Please call me by your name" again and again, but the building that was so beautiful under the director's lens. The old houses, the books piled on the corner, and those vocabulary sources that you used to come and go during the breakfast are all elements that the director successfully extracted from the novel, and the spark between the two of them is compared to the original novel. The reduction is not as good as half.
This difference can be seen in the same scene with Steve Carell and Maura Tierney in "Pretty Boy". His performance to drug addicts only manifested as nose twitching and yelling.
This red-hot American-French mixed-race is really a bit uncomfortable with the exquisite classical look, and hopes that he can vigorously hone his acting skills in the future, and don't be blinded by popularity.
In "The Erased Boy", Joe and Lucas are one of the few rivals that successfully created a climax in the restrained movie atmosphere, although it was only a few seconds.
The original text was first published in [a] APP
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