A fantasy film based on a novel by Patrick Ness. It tells the story of Connor, a young man who was shrouded in growing pains, under the wonderful inspiration of "Tree Man Shu Mi", overcomes nightmares and pains, and faces the growth and healing story of life and death.
The protagonist of the film is a young boy named Connor, whose parents ended their marriage when he was young, and his father left Los Angeles, leaving him to live with his mother. He is an introvert and a quiet kid. But after learning that his mother was seriously ill and needed chemotherapy, he began to have nightmares and became uneasy.
His mother was no longer able to take care of him during chemotherapy. He can only live with his grandmother, but he does not get along well with her grandmother. The divorced father, who had other family children in the United States, came back to be with him for a while, but soon left him again.
He received sympathy from his teachers at school, but he also faced bullying from his classmates. As if everything was going bad, only painting could calm him down. However, nightmares kept attacking him until the appearance of a huge monster "The Tree Man", who only appeared in the middle of the night. When the conflict between Connor and his grandmother intensified, he felt that she was always targeting him, didn't understand herself, and thought that her grandmother was a bad person, the monster tree told him a story.
The first story: "The Prince and the Queen" - seeing is not always believing. About good and evil
A young witch marries an elderly king and inherits the throne. The witch is bad, but she didn't kill the king. The king grows old naturally. In order to seize the throne, the prince killed his wife, put the blame on the witch, and called on the people to overthrow the witch's rule, but at the same time the prince He is also a good man. Under his rule, the country is prosperous and the people are strong and the life is healthy. And the monster saved the witch, because she wasn't the bad guy in the matter. The story is full of lies, good and evil, and desire.
When Connor was puzzled, the monster tree man said: "There are not always good people in the story, and there are not always only bad people. Some people are both good and evil." At this time, Connor realized that it was true. The same is true of the world. It is not a simple binary division. More people are between good and bad.
There are no absolute good and bad people in the world, people are a mixture of good and evil. So, even the closest relatives to you are not perfect and have all kinds of flaws. The indifferent grandmother may be exhausted from taking care of her mother and has no time to take care of the teenager's emotions. The father of another family can only do basic obligations to him, and it is impossible to accommodate him unconditionally.
Second Story: "The Herbalist and the Priest" - Always test your faith. About Faith
The story between the believer and the greedy pharmacist, the believer spoke badly about the pharmacist in the market, so that in the end no one went to see him, even though he was very good at medicine. When the believer's two precious daughters fell ill and had to go to the pharmacist, the pharmacist asked him to give up everything about him and advertised him in the market, and the believers agreed. But the last two daughters could not be saved. The monster completely destroyed his house because he gave up and betrayed the faith he insisted on.
Connor's mother has cancer. He hopes that her mother will get better soon, but he refuses his grandmother to take his mother to participate in chemotherapy. In fact, Connor doesn't know what he believes in. On the surface, he believes that his mother will get better, but deep down in his heart , he always knew that his mother couldn't stand it. He believed that he gave up his mother, and he killed her. Even, he believes that the future after losing his mother is like an abyss.
The Third Story: The Invisible Man's Outrage - Self-Care
A real person, but always selectively ignored by everyone, he is tired of the days when no one sees him. One day the invisible man finally couldn't take it anymore, and he repeatedly asked himself a question: If others can't see him, does he still have a meaning to exist? So he made a decision: to summon the power of anger to destroy.
Connor in the film is like an invisible man, not the center of attention surrounded by a halo, as if forgotten by the world.
Every door hides a secret. Every growth comes with separation. Every fairy tale comes to an end.
Connor thought that the monster didn't want to help him at all, but in the process of telling such a story, the monster gradually made Connor realize some truths in the real world: there are no pure good or bad people in this world, and everyone's soul is good and evil. Intertwined, you can't one-sidedly judge a person's good or bad; people can do some wrong things, but they must have faith. Faith can't help you overcome disease, but it can bring you confidence.
When the three stories of the monster were told, we found that the monster brought Connor not "fear", but a kind of courage, a kind of courage to face life and face himself, A kind of courage to face loss, face pain.
Story 4: Love has always been there, just in a different way
With the encouragement of the monster tree man, the little boy bravely expressed his inner thoughts. Connor couldn't bear the fact that his mother was seriously ill and was leaving this world. He wanted it to be over soon, so in his fantasy, when she was clutching his hand on the edge of a cliff, he let go of her and she fell into the abyss. At this time, Connor said: "I wish my mother died sooner, I killed my mother", but at this time the tree man corrected his thoughts in time: "You just want your pain to end, not to kill yourself. Mother." The tree man's identification of Connor's false beliefs made him see the irrationality of his own thoughts, and he began to forgive himself.
To his dying mother, he said affectionately that I don't want you to leave, hugged her affectionately, and his expression was calm and peaceful.
Yes, I love you, you are the most important part of my life. But birth, old age, sickness, death, parting from love, and not being able to ask for it, these are the only roads in life.
When I have to accept it, I accept it. When I have to let go, I let go. You can go in peace, and I will work hard.
While cleaning up her mother's belongings, Connor found a picture book of her mother.
The three stories the tree monster told him were recorded in the picture book. Only with the tree monster is a little girl.
Back then, his mother, like him, went through the same psychological process.
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