――Han Xi
Some people say that women are emotional and men are rational, so emotional women hope to occupy all the spiritual world of their husbands, and rational men have to return to their wives in the end even if they get many women’s bodies. "Butterfly on Wheels" probably reflects this statement.
Objectively speaking, although the ending of this film is somewhat unexpected, it also feels a bit fussy. It is nothing more than a punishment for cheating, but it creates a thrilling conspiracy. This is indeed a bit out of touch with reality, but the punishment itself is absolutely There's nothing wrong with it, we're just seeing a deduction of the method.
The film begins peacefully, the life of the family of three seems to be very happy, Neil is reused in the company, and his wife is obviously a virtuous and virtuous woman. Generally speaking, the calm foreshadowing is to prepare for the horror behind the film, but there are some exceptions. The director sets some extremely small details in the calm, which makes the audience look somewhat uncomfortable, so that the audience can gradually be caught. appetite. The film obviously adopts the second type. When Ryan, played by Brosnan, stood on the edge of the tall building and stared at Neil with a telescope, the danger in the calm was manifested, so the audience began to have some expectations and speculation. .
Sure enough, when Neil and his wife were in the car, Ryan suddenly sat up from the back seat. This is a plot that goes against common sense, but it does have a thrilling effect. The rhythm of the film begins to speed up, conflicts arise immediately, and a kidnapping case begins to emerge.
With the child in someone else's hands, the Neils had to follow Ryan's instructions, and the first thing was to withdraw money. But he never expected that Ryan would burn all the belongings that Neil took. A kidnapping case, but not for money, so what is it for? I believe that the audience at this time will have some guesses in their hearts, and most of these guesses will be transferred to Neil's work. Maybe there is something wrong with the project being done? But what made the audience even more unexpected was that Ryan then asked Neil to quit his job immediately. As a result, the audience's guesses were lost again.
At this point, the audience will find that all the director's creations actually incorporate the audience's ideas in a timely manner. The first is the kidnapping case. Since the opening part of the film does not have any indication of Ryan's motives, the audience will completely guess according to their usual thinking, that is, to demand a ransom. But when the so-called ransom is destroyed, the audience's speculation will naturally turn to work, but Neil's resignation makes Neil have no power, so the work is also excluded. Then the rest is naturally a personal grudge. If ransom and work are social, personal grudges are family.
From society to family, Ryan's layout is shrinking step by step, and the audience's thinking is precisely such a process of shrinking. Of course, this is deliberately arranged by the director, but why is such an order formed?
The film can be said to be a textbook on how to destroy a man, which does seem terrifying. Money and career are symbols of a man's sociality, but the destruction of his belongings and his resigned job have made Neil lose these social identities. Once a man loses his social identity, all his dignity will also be lost. For such a man, the only place he can go is family. It is often said that women are a safe haven for men, so the last piece of fig leaf for a man is actually a wife, but when Neil heads to the police station full of hope, a hypothesis is put in front of him, maybe it's all his wife's. Conspiracy, his wife was leaving him, so Neil was finally completely defeated, he lost everything, social status and family.
The film has been very exciting and logical up to this point, especially the grasp of male social identity and family identity is just right. But it is a pity that at this point the film begins to turn to the question-and-answer time. Why did Ryan do this, and what was his motive? In order to solve this problem, the wife is finally brought back by Ryan, and Neil sees his wife inexplicably after losing everything. For a man who has lost money and lost his career, the family formed by his wife and daughter is his only life-saving straw, so when this straw is lost and found, it is especially precious.
Since the daughter is still under Ryan's control, Neil must continue to fulfill Ryan's instructions, which reveal the film's biggest suspense. The affair has finally become the annotation of the whole play, but there are two big problems in it. First, in the whole plot, Neil is the first person to be controlled, and the mistress is simply told that Neil doesn't care about her for the sake of the family. Life and death, it is obvious that one favors one over the other, Ryan's efforts are somewhat contrived, and the second is that the motive of cheating is not enough to complete the destruction of a man's life, and is this destruction really what Neil's wife wants?
The film itself has a certain deductive value, but due to the unreasonable motives, all the plot and logic of the film are built on an unreliable cornerstone, so it is inevitable that the audience will feel fooled.
Han Xi
2007-12-27 in Tongzhou
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