Although Gerri and Tom have the same name as Tom and Jerry, their lives aren't as exciting. They live a peaceful and simple life in peace and spend a lot of time caring for the small garden. They will close their eyes and feel the oncoming breeze. They will sit in the garden cabin with a cup of hot tea when the rain is heavy, thinking about When his son will get married and have children, he will invite relatives and friends to have a barbecue on weekends, and eat freshly picked tomatoes during the harvest season. Throughout the film, they are more like a lead, connecting the encounters of those visitors in their lives.
"Vera Drake" heroine Imelda Staunton makes a cameo in the opening credits of Janet, a woman with depression and insomnia. She couldn't tell her heart to the psychotherapist Gerri, all the troubles and questions seemed to be stuck in her throat, but when Gerri asked her if the changes in her life and age caused her fear and anxiety, her eyes were blank The answer is that nothing has actually changed. Maybe it wasn't because she was holding back troubles in her heart, but she didn't know what the problem was at all. Although the character appeared briefly, she pulled out Gerri and was another version of the story's protagonist, Mary.
Mary seems to be the central character of the film. This elderly single woman is very emotional and neurotic, and it is not difficult to recall Cynthia, the equally sensitive and neurotic mother in "Secrets and Lies". When she visited the Gerri family for the first time, she was very drunk, confided to Gerri and Tom the loneliness in her heart and the nostalgia for the man she once loved, and finally collapsed on the bed and passed out with tears in her eyes. The second time, at a summer barbecue, she finds she seems to be in love with Joe, Gerri's lawyer son, and asks Joe to date her with all sorts of insinuations. The fall visit left her feeling down when she found out that Joe had a girlfriend, and ended up embarrassing the Gerri family. In fact, Joe has never been Mary's type, he is just part of a happy and perfect family. So maybe it wasn't this man that Mary liked, but Gerri's life, this family, that kind of stable, down-to-earth, peaceful days. At the end of the film, she is sitting at the dinner table of the perfect family, listening to the family's plans and visions for the future, looking at and smiling with Ronnie, who is also an outsider, and then continues to frown and stare blankly, just like the insomniac woman Janet in the film. , suddenly lost direction, no longer understand why they live. Mary is not without suitors, Ken likes her so much but she doesn't look down on her, and she ruthlessly rejected Ken and then was rejected by reality, so maybe life is like Gerri and Tom's small garden, you can only sell seeds, Take good care of it to get the results you expect.
During the summer, Gerri and Tom's friend Ken came to their house, and the fat, honest man was as drunk as Mary. After night fell they sat on the lawn behind the house. Ken said his friends were dying one by one, he didn't know why he was going home, and when he was sitting on the train and saw a tree, he remembered a friend's funeral. Speaking of which, he suddenly burst into tears. I think this is the loneliness and fear of the twilight. When those who are with you have left one by one, what are you still doing in the world, what are you living for? Ronnie, Tom's older brother, has the same problem. His wife died suddenly, leaving only an unfilial son who never came home, so he could only stay at Tom's house, watching this happy life that had nothing to do with him, and continued to live at a loss.
If "Secrets and Lies" is about the life problems that every ordinary person may encounter, "Another Year" is about those who have stepped into the twilight and suddenly realize their own loneliness and loneliness, but still can not guess the meaning of life. The premiere of "Another Year" held at the Forum des images in Paris invited many old couples to watch the movie. After I walked out of the cinema, I also discussed with my fellow KUMA that the "Another Year" we saw was different from the one we saw. The "Another Year" that the old people see will definitely not be the same movie. Therefore, when we are still young, we can only try to understand and feel the mixed mood through the lens of Mike Lee.
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