It's about the aunt and the broken hearts of women.
The English golden song Only women bleed sings a sadomasochistic story: "She always cries alone at night / He smokes and drinks and never comes home". The title of the song has been translated into "Wounded Always Women". When the main melody sounded at the end of the American drama "Better things", it changed from a sadomasochism to a heartwarming story of women falling in love and killing each other.
The comedy "Better Things" tells the story of how Sam, a middle-aged actor, takes care of his mother and three daughters on his own after work. Three women are a play, and five women are a farce. 10 episodes and 200 minutes, almost every minute is filled with quarrels between mother and daughter, daughter crying and unhappiness at work. Coupled with no love life, it sounds like this single mother's life is really at the bottom.
Star and screenwriter Pamela Adlon is a longtime partner of Louis C.K. A semi-autobiographical work by Pamelard, "A Better Thing" continues the "middle-age mourning comedy" style that was the hallmark of "Louie": life is just that bad. I'm not going to be hysterical because I know it's useless; I'm not going to be hysterical because I'm this age. So, so be it.
The first episode opens with Sam wearily sitting on a mall bench, head down and playing with his phone. The little girl beside her cried heart-breakingly. The old lady on the other side of the bench cast a judge's glance at Sam. "Hi, do you want to buy her a pair of earrings? She wants those $6 earrings. She already has them at home, but she wants them now. You either buy her or get stared at me." Sam said without expression.
One of the most impressive and heartbreaking mother-daughter confrontations was when the eldest daughter kept swearing at Sam: "Mom, I hate you. I want you to live in hell." And Sam said calmly, "You say Too many times. You say it doesn't work for me anymore. You have to come up with something tougher."
A series of mourning treatments builds up Sam's character and creates a unique comedic effect. The audience can't simply judge whether Sam is a good mother or a bad mother. She would steal the condom left by the eldest daughter's bedside table in order to have an affair with a married man at home, and would turn a blind eye to the complaints of the second daughter who expressed her desire for attention; but she also held her eldest daughter in her arms when she was in love, I was overjoyed to learn that the job I finally got was cancelled, just because I could have time to go to my second daughter's school activities.
It's a thoroughly women's show, even a feminist work. There is no male protagonist in the play, and the males who appear are insignificant. What's more interesting is that the names of several female characters in the play - Sam, Max, Frankie, Duke are all quite neutral (no accident, Frankie should be a feminist little T).
In one scene, Sam was invited to speak at a women's event. This is her one of the few emotional catharsis in the play, which may sum up the main point of the play: "Who is sitting here, who is coming to Auntie? Who is not coming to Auntie anymore? Who is coming? We are all Girls, they're all women. We're all coming to Auntie, and we're going to endure the pain. Auntie is gone, and we're going to endure it. But you have to find your own way. We are all strong, and we can endure the pain, as long as you trust yourself."
So, when the music of "Only women bleed" played at the end of the play and the whole family hummed together, I didn't want to interpret it as the weak self-pity of "Women Who Wounded", but the one of "It's Always Women Who Bleed" rational objective facts. Yes, we'll all come to Big Aunts, but we've got to live with it too.
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