I took time to brush Laurel Valley today, and I will talk about my thoughts below.
I generally don't like movies that are mainly life stories. My first reaction is: boring, running accounts, and I don't know what to do after watching it for more than two hours. The main reason I will watch this movie is that I like Christian Bale as an actor. But after watching Laurel Valley, I changed my fixed thinking about this type of film. It turns out that life can be made so interesting, simple but not simple.
At the end of the swipe, I felt relaxed and happy, like the feeling of leaning on a chair on the balcony in the afternoon and reading a book, which may be largely due to the soundtrack of the movie. The relaxed and rhythmic music adds a lot to the movie. The entire film is about an hour and a half long, without long and boring dialogues, linear narrative, well-controlled rhythm, and a very natural transition to the climax, that is, Sam and Alex quarreled on the road because of misunderstandings and finally hugged tightly, emotional release reached At the top, I have to praise the two actors for their excellent acting skills.
Second brush my focus is mainly on the Sam and Alex characters, especially Alex's changes, and the final open ending. Let's talk about Sam first. Sam has many good qualities, such as firmness, principles, love, and will take care of other people's ideas, etc. The latter points are simply high emotional intelligence, especially in his relationship with Sara, he has noticed Sara fell in love with him but still watched TV with her and the band because "she drove me home, I can't be so rude", kissed Sara enough and didn't do anything sorry to Alex, I think he treated Sara Saying "you're lucky, you can control your heart" is to tell her kindly that she shouldn't fall in love with him, he already has a girlfriend, but Sam didn't reject her directly from the beginning to the end. There's a bit of a sense, but on the other hand he's a principled person, he's not free to start a new relationship when it's not over, and Sam needs to make sure Alex doesn't misunderstand them both without hurting Sara, He handled it really well.
Say Alex again. Alex is a character who has grown up a lot. As the best student in the class, she is not good at dealing with relationships and sophistication. She accepted Ian's proposal to "leave the ivory tower for a while and live a little". Then something went wrong, Sam happened to see Alex and Ian in the room with disheveled clothes, stupid Alex didn't understand why Sam was so mad, she didn't think too much about it when she played with them, just to be fresh, but she had to Considering the possible consequences of these things, she should take care of Sam's feelings, I always love you even if I fucked up. The two finally cleared up the misunderstanding and hugged each other in the street. Alex said to Ian you opening me up, that is, Alex learned from this misunderstanding that she should take care of other people's feelings when she does everything, and can't live a life of ignorance. This is the growth of the character.
There are probably two kinds of final open endings: Sam begins to live according to his mother's way, accepts Sara's confession, and the two are together; Sam is still with Alex, but begins to gradually understand his mother's way of life and rethink the definition of loser . I personally prefer the second, Sam is still with Alex, but no longer feels that his mother is a loser, the most obvious evidence is that Sam hung up the phone when Sara was about to confess, watching Ian lying on the air mattress driving the remote control sailboat Passing in front of her mother, her mother smiled happily. She missed the previous experience of sailing out to sea. It should be something they all know, how is it not a loser? What kind of person do you have to prove to others? Sam has new answers to these questions: Life is all about being in the moment, immersing yourself in what you're doing and enjoying it without regrets (mother had several lovers doesn't mean she's unprincipled, she Not a loser, because she knows what she is doing), life is her own, not someone else's, and you know how you live, you don't need to prove anything to others, it's what you do that defines you. And you care too much about other people's evaluations We tend to restrain ourselves. Many times we should do what we want to do, and we also need to do what we want to do. This is why the first ending is also possible.
At the end of the film, Sam submerged in the bottom of the water, looking at the mottled light and shadow above, the bubbles blooming on the water surface, and the microwave waves did not leave any traces, and the life in Laurel Valley continued. In the brief time in the water, he seemed to relive his summer life in Laurel Valley.
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