Polanski's "True Story Adaptation" is a standard thriller and suspense story. Whether it is the plot structure or the character design, it has a little routine. We can find its shadow in many movies. But Polanski’s work is better than conciseness. He uses three main characters to tell a story about the real existence or the complete fiction. The "femme beauty" is still full of dangers, and the best-selling authors in the bottleneck period suffer. Is everything true? Everything is confusing, let the audience understand it by themselves.
Dai Fen is a best-selling author. She gradually lost her fame, and the pressure of being unable to write made her collapse. At a signing event, she met a mysterious and charming woman, Ella. Soon, Dai Fen told her Opening her heart, she inadvertently integrated into Dai Fen's life. When some of the details of life were enlarged, Dai Fen discovered that Ella was actually manipulating her life. Dai Fen felt that Ella was about to steal all of her life. After a heavy rain, she escaped from the house in order to get rid of Ella's control...
In fact, the movie seems to tell the story of the "femme beauty" framed by the female writer of the bottleneck period, but when you think about it, there may be such a doubt: Is Ella real? Dai Fen is a woman writer who has always been in a state of high mental stress. The success of a book makes her difficult to overcome. She must write a best-selling book again in order to stabilize her "status". She felt exhausted under the tremendous mental pressure, and could no longer write a word. The boyfriend is busy at work, the children have their own lives, and everything can only be borne by themselves. And Ella's appearance provided her with an object to confide in. She seemed to become relaxed, and inspiration came inadvertently.
Ella is a perfect person, beautiful, confident, and seems to have an unbearable past. She is too perfect, except for a little nervousness, she is simply a "perfect person". Her character is not displayed too much in the movie, everything comes from her self-narration. These loopholes make the author suspect that she is the person Dai Fen fantasized about after taking stabilizers. Ella is almost the woman that Dai Fen desires to be. At the same time, ELLe means "she" in French.
Then we assume that Ella comes from Dai Fen's fabricated, then there are some doubts. How to explain the letter that Ella replied to her and the manuscript sent back to the publishing house. So assuming that Ella does not exist, Ella is even Difen’s second personality, then who is Ella mentioned in the conversation between her and her boyfriend?
Whether "Ella" really exists is actually a mystery. We have every reason to suspect that Ella, like Kiki in her story, comes from imagination. The whole movie keeps depicting and sketching various details, just like the story told by Ella, the setting of various details is ingenious and perfect. Ella’s Kiki is her best friend, and Dai Fen regards Ella as a best friend. The real adaptation may be just a fabrication of the fictitious "truth", maybe Dai Fen is Ella, and Ella is actually not a part of Dai Fen. Even none of the incidents happened, everything originated from Dai Fen's idea for the next book of decimals.
At the end of the film, Dai Fen held a signing event for his new book. She put on red lipstick, and her signed hands were painted with red nail polish, just like Ella's style. In a trance, she saw a girl as Ella, and soon she recovered her composure and continued to sign the title page.
The truth is adapted, and the truth may be derived from fiction.
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