Ordinary life and unreliable life

Albertha 2022-02-07 14:58:25

It's a rambling, homely film, and I think it's kind of ethnography. The theme is the passage of time and how we age.

There are two different kinds of life, one is a regular life, two people get married and have children, the children grow up and then get married, have children, have a stable income, and live a healthy life. The other is an unreliable life, a failed marriage, and a failed love. They have been trying to seize the tail of youth, but they are always left in an embarrassing situation by the years. They cannot face the reality because the reality is so bleak.

When you are young, the former life is called boredom, and the latter is called passion; when you get older, the former is called stability, and the latter is called down-and-out. Tom and Ken, two men, both old, were once crazy fans, and both liked clubbing, drinking, and making trouble, but Tom later lived a normal family life, while Ken had been living as a young man In the lifestyle, alcoholism, self-defeating, there is today but no tomorrow. Gerry and Mary are two old women. Gerry met a good and reliable man, married and had children, and lived a prosperous life, but Mary was divorced and fell in love with a married man. She was so old that she had to show off her coquettishness to find a man. Completely uneconomical.

It's a brutal movie and I don't know why it's classified as a comedy. In this movie, the down-and-out people are down-to-earth because of their own unreliability, and the happy people are happy because of their normality. There is no mishap, and no pie in the sky. All the blessings and woes of life are thus completely laid upon the man himself. This distinction is not even due to race, class, IQ, things that are imposed on people by accident. Ken and Tom are classmates. Ken also graduated from university and has a stable civil service job. He even cared about politics in his early years. Mary also went to a good university.

Some people may think this movie is boring, there are so many short dialogues among parents, drinking and dining again and again (it is said that the British wine culture is comparable to the Chinese tobacco culture, or even more serious, no wonder so many moral defenders in the 19th century were there. discussing alcoholism), but everyone's life is made clear in these small talk. Just like doing a field interview, if you listen patiently, you can piece together the story behind the miscellaneous information.

Tom's nephew, the once cute and likable Carl, turns out to be Fei and even misses his mother's funeral. Tom's son is a promising young man who is a little fat. I thought he would be gay, and I also thought he would flirt with Mary. As a result, he and his parents chose to live a normal life and find a reliable good girl live. The contrasts in the lives of the parents are carried over to the next generation, generation after generation.


PS: Reliable and unreliable, is it genetically determined? Or is it determined by education and experience?

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Extended Reading
  • Briana 2022-03-26 09:01:13

    Delicate... The loneliness of all kinds of people; It shows the state when there is no love, and the deformed mentality, and when the friendship is lost in the end, and there is nothing, it finally collapses, and there is no way to go back to the past; The second shows a happy family the importance and beauty of

  • Tate 2022-02-07 14:58:25

    Stories are easy to write, but how to impress people with the dullest life is hard. In her twilight years, Mary, who is still lonely, uses her self-righteousness, sensitivity and vulnerability to yearn for a little alms from the happy people, and the happy people always have a high level of misfortune. We can't comment on how much they perceive misfortune. The journey of life in spring, summer, autumn and winter, such a silent and powerful script, Mary stands on the edge of happiness and has nothing to do with everything.

Another Year quotes

  • Mary: I'm very much a glass-half-full kind of girl. But it's tricky, because... I meet these older men who want somebody younger, and that's great, because I fit the bill. But... when they find out that... you know, I'm not as young as they thought, they don't want to know. My looks work against me.

  • Gerri: Life's not always kind, is it?

    Mary: No, it isn't Gerri.