I remember that I didn't like watching YA movies very much when I was a student. The love stories of handsome men and women were really unattractive to me. The main reason is that I often find myself in the characters who are bullied in the film. This is not to say that I was often bullied when I was a student, but because of my personality and interests, I was always unable to get along with handsome male protagonists. So when you find the weird American school culture that survives in the movies where the weirdos are pushed out and the ones who can finally fit into the big group survive, I've always scoffed at these kinds of movies.
Because of this, I actually don't like this kind of movies, until I watched "Napoleon Dynamite" in 2004, which made me see some YA movies with different views. He refuted the Hollywood style of handsome men and beauties, and it also made people realize that geeks can be themselves, even if not cool! But it's also cool on some levels.
So in recent years, there are always good YA movies that I appreciate, such as "Boy I'm the Worst", "The Actress Next Door", "Love Wireless Spectrum", these movies cut into the YA in our impressions from different perspectives Although the film should have elements of YA films, it has more in-depth thoughts and issues. Then Gus Fansan's "Psychedelic Park", the director used a unique atmosphere and pictures to portray the confusion and growth of teenagers. The year before last, Jason Reitman's "Being Pregnant" approached a serious topic from a loose point of view. This film not only swept the US box office, but also completely changed our previous perception of YA films, which were popular in the past. Thousands of Juno Ellen Page also collaborated on the film with the film's director, Hollywood eccentric actress Julie Barrymore.
Director Julie Barrymore will briefly introduce to you here. In 1982, Steven Spielberg's "Alien" made Julie popular, but his rapid fame caused his rapid downfall. When he was young, he was addicted to drugs and alcohol and even worked as a child prostitute. When everyone classified him as a fallen child star, he made a comeback and recovered his image in films such as "A Kiss" and "Wedding Singer", and later "Charlie's Angels" and "28 Days of Fright". She not only acts as an actor but also participates in the production. She also has a film production company called "Flower Films". She recently won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries. He is not only a representative of the comeback of actresses, he is even a model of excellent actresses, and also makes his life even more exciting than the movies he starred in. Therefore, the two major female stars of the new and Mesozoic generations joined forces to present a different YA movie in the first film directed by Julie Barrymore, which is really commendable.
The film adaptation of Shana Cross's novel "Derby Girl" (pictured left) tells the story of Bryce (Ellen Page), a female high school student in a rural Texas town who grew up with the expectations of a paranoid mother who is paranoid about beauty pageants. I look forward to leaving this town one day and doing something I like other than beauty pageants. He came across a flyer for "Roller Racing" by chance, which piqued his interest. The next day, he and his friend Pash (played by Arya Charcot) went to the next big city Austin to watch a game, which made him excited about the sport, and was also attracted by the tough and strong players in the sport. The women below, which made him fall in love with the sport...
In the film, the heroine Briss (played by Ellen Page) expresses the confusion and helplessness of teenagers under the strong educational style of their parents, and finds their own direction and redemption through "wheel racing". Brissy's mother Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden) is a traditional American woman, and her high-pressure discipline can't help but think of the mother of the hero in "Fame". Even in a democratic and open country like the United States, there are still many conservative-minded people. The movie background is actually very appropriate in Texas. Texas, which advocates the adventurous spirit of Western cowboys, is also one of several conservative regions in the United States. The roles of Briss and his mother represent extreme expressions of these two characters. In the movie, there are no more than family issues, peer friendships, love issues, and rival elements that should be included in YA movies. And these problems lie in the pulling of these two ends, which has become the wonderful place of this movie. Therefore, this film is not only a conflict film between mother and daughter, but also a conservative and radical confrontation.
But unlike other YA movies, it always falls on one side. The results we often see are nothing more than children who are childish and impulsive. After being hurt, they rely on the tolerance and warmth of their family members to deny their previous impulsive performance; on the contrary, the children finally rely on their own ideas and succeed in different fields. The understanding of the family has made YA movies always like this in the past. On the other hand, the film does not actually have such a black-and-white outcome. In the film, the mother learns openness and understanding from the incident, and Briss also understands communication and understanding. In particular, there is a scene in the film where Bryce and Maggie (Kristin Wenger) tell Bryce in the car: "Although something is wrong with her (referring to Bryce's mother), it is not equal to everything. No, just because you made new friends doesn’t mean you have to give up your family.” This sentence struck me very deeply. Often we always think that only friends in the world understand you best, and we hope that friends can support you in everything. But a true friend is a true friend if he can correct himself at the wrong time. This film allows me to see a more flexible but correct angle to persuade the audience how to deal with family problems, instead of just using family disputes to insinuate that traditional concepts always need to be conflicted and broken through, "Even if it is old-fashioned or Tradition, in which there are still correct concepts and desirable meanings.” The family should also be a special case, and should not always be the recipient. This is also the last Brisbane's speech card that says that her mother is a fighter, and she is not as proud of her own achievements as her mother is proud of him. That moved me deeply.
The film ended with passion, and everything was flat in the end. In the last scene of the film, Bris was filmed on the big pig sign above the restaurant, looking into the distance, silently without sound. It seems to describe that passion and confrontation will eventually disappear, no matter good or bad, and what awaits us in the end is an unknown future.
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