The history of human growth is actually the history of self-discovery. With the evolution of the physique and the progress of knowledge, human beings have discovered that they can use nature, create matter, enrich their lives, and satisfy their desires with wisdom, but human beings have also discovered a basic fact that no living thing can surpass death. People have birth, old age, sickness and death, and things come into being and die. In short, all things in the world cannot last for a long time, and are in the process of birth and death. This is what Buddhism calls "impermanence". The sequence of the spring and autumn, the blooming and falling of flowers, the complete absence of clouds and sunshine, the changing of the moon and the stars, etc. These are the "impermanence" of nature, which are very easy to detect and do not affect the subject very deeply. The most common one is the sentimentality of the literati . On the contrary, the "impermanence" of life is not easy to realize, but once you wake up, you will feel powerless, even piercing and indescribable.
Jimmy, Sean, and Dave's three friends, before Dave got into the pedophile car disguised as a policeman, their life trajectories were basically similar, but after that, they rarely met, and their life situations were even more different. Dave was sexually assaulted and never stepped out of the shadows, growing into a silent and gloomy person who, although married, rarely communicated with his wife Celeste. Jimmy was imprisoned for a robbery in his youth. After he was released from prison, he owned a supermarket, but he was actually the head of the local underworld. He had an unpredictable wife, Annabeth, and a beautiful 19-year-old daughter, Katie, born to his ex-wife. Sean grew up to become a local police detective, and his wife ran away from home with their young children. The three ignorant playmates of the year are now middle-aged strangers. The paradox of fate, who can measure it? The impermanence of life, who can not sigh? But looking at the crowd, how can such a situation be in the minority?
When Buddhists observe the world and life, they pay attention to the word "predestination", which says that all things arise because of predestination, when predestination gathers, it arises, and when predestination disperses, it perishes. The same is true of people's gathering and dispersing, the joys and sorrows, the joys and sorrows. Although such an explanation is tactful, it is unavoidable. The breakdown of the friendship between Jimmy, Sean and Dave, although there are many factors, but Dave's fate is undoubtedly one of them. Because this incident completely destroyed his personality and life, he can no longer fit into the crowd, and can no longer return to the world of the past. After meeting again, Jimmy asked Sean at the police station: He kept thinking, if it wasn't Dave who got into the car, but him, would everything happen today? Sean was speechless. Clearly, the film implies that childhood mishaps had an impact on their lives. It's just that its effect is not obvious. When Katie was killed, the root cause of the incident was gradually exposed.
Katie was murdered, and the fates of the three intersected again, but the wanton simplicity of childhood was no longer there, and they became business affairs with their own minds. There are at least three narrative threads in this part. First, on the night Katie was arrested, Dave suddenly ran home covered in blood and refused to explain the reason to his wife, which kept her in a state of panic and doubt. Another line is Sean's case-solving process, which reveals the reasons for Jimmy's past imprisonment, etc., and finally finds the real murderer. The third clue is that Jimmy arranges his men to chase the murderer himself. The three clues intersect each other and gradually point towards Dave. Sean takes Dave back to the police station for questioning. This was discovered by Jimmy, adding to his suspicions. At this moment, the panicked Celeste couldn't bear it any longer, and she told Jimmy her doubts, believing that the murderer was her husband. A grief-stricken Jimmy kidnaps Dave, tricks him into confessing, and kills him. In fact, Dave is not the real murderer. Before he was taken away by Jimmy, he told his wife the truth: the injuries he suffered that day were caused by beating a pedophile, but everything was irreparable. The film then returns to the unfortunate incident at the beginning.
Dave's experience formed his depressed and silent personality, which caused him to have difficulty communicating with his wife, which slowly accumulated and eventually became unbearable for both of them. So he beats the paedophile, and she panics. Unfortunately, both have vented their emotions at inappropriate times: Katie was killed the day Dave hit, and Jimmy was suspicious when Celeste confided. So, the misfortune of childhood did not disappear with growing up, and finally became the driving force of Dave's death. But this is still not the end.
At the end of the film, Jimmy was shocked when he learned that Dave did not know the real murderer. He felt the trick of impermanence again, and fell into self-blame, but his wife Annabeth let him out of the sadness with a specious "love theory". , become at ease. It can be imagined from Annabeth's high speech that she will become an important driving force in Jimmy's life (unfortunately, the film did not explain much about it before). In the crowd, Sean, who was watching the parade with his wife back home, looked at Jimmy's smile and made a shooting motion with his finger at him. He apparently regarded Jimmy as the suspect of Dave's death and declared war on him; and Jimmy smiled and put on his sunglasses, which was a cover, but he didn't care, he accepted the challenge. The three former partners, after the ruthless provocation of fate, have left one, but the rest still have to entangle, and all this comes from the action of bowing and entering the car.
The predecessors said: "impermanence is fast, thoughts move, stone fire and wind lamp, afterglow of evanescent waves, Luhua movies, it is not enough." Everyone yearns for eternity, but impermanence is eternal, and this discovery is depressing. Before being killed by Jimmy, Dave said, "If it was you who got in the car, you would understand." However, it was this sobriety that made him suffer for the rest of his life. Perhaps because of this, Jimmy replied, "But it wasn't me, it was you who got in the car." He chose to live in the present rather than dwell on the past. But, in this way, can we really get rid of the impermanence of that fate?
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