If the script is moved to China...

Constantin 2022-04-23 07:01:26

When I get older, I enjoy watching such divorce lawsuit films with relish, and I feel like I'm about to become an aunt of the neighborhood committee.

Why did the heroine get divorced? I am looking for a more specific explanation. Of course, equality between men and women has not become a reality, but what the heroine encounters is not a problem with women in the usual sense.

She, her mother and her lawyer, these three women as social elites all have quite sufficient external goodness, and the American marriage law shown in the movie also protects the rights and interests of women quite well. Her husband is a good man in the modern sense. She is better at housework and meticulous than her, and really loves children and enjoys time with her family. In particular, the husband deposited the winnings of his drama into the joint account of the couple. Later, divorce lawyers said that the man was stupid. The heroine also admitted that she told her lawyer that her husband was not a horrible person.

The reason for the heroine's divorce, to put it bluntly, is that she could not find herself in the marriage and could not feel her own vitality. To be more specific, my husband's troupe is becoming more and more successful. He is a great director, and he is just a person in his troupe. Before the divorce, she had received an invitation from Hollywood (probably misremembered), but her husband's response to this was understated, and he added that the remuneration could be invested in the troupe fund.

If the heroine is an ordinary Chinese, most likely will not be sad about it. It is equivalent to a husband and wife operating a theater company together. The man is the boss and she is the wife of the boss. The two of them go to Broadway together, make money together, and win awards together. Why not do it? This is the family logic of marriage familiar to Chinese people, the community is greater than the individual. Not so for her, the troupe is the hero's achievement, not hers. She wants to do her own business. The weight of this reason is far greater than the husband's one-night stand. We see later that the heroine has always wanted to be a director. After the divorce, she did indeed become a director. And this, if she didn't get married, it would never be possible.

She couldn't have a career without a divorce, not because her husband completely dumped her children, nor because her husband or the so-called Judeo-Christian culture locked her in the family. Otherwise, she will not be able to achieve later results. The reason is above all the inertia of life. Although it is not as powerful as inevitability, it should not be underestimated. Just like quitting smoking and drinking, most people do not have the courage to resist it. Since the pattern of the two at the beginning is that he is the director, she is the actor, he is the smart one, and she is the one who helps, why should they change?

This inertia is caused by two people together. It's not that her husband doesn't love her. Just like I was used to not doing housework at home since I was a child, no one explicitly allowed me to do this, but no one asked me, as if everyone acquiesced. Now that I'm older, I know I'm ashamed. But most of the time I'm too lazy to change, since maintaining the status quo is good for me. So does my husband. He loves her too, but he loves himself more.

On the wife's side, her self-awakening is relatively late. She described her husband's previous emotional life as "dead", and the encounter with him brought her back to life. Married soon. On the other hand, in the quarrel, the husband rant said that he did not desire marriage at that time, but that you were pressing and I really love you. This speech is already quite touching. It's not a matter of who loves whom more deeply. It's just that she used to find meaning in life from her intimate relationship with a man. This is really the influence of Judeo-Christian culture. So she acquiesced to the formation of this life habit at first, and as her husband said, she used to feel happy from it.

Two people have one thing in common, that is, the individual precedes the collective. The husband is more obvious, and the wife is actually too. Although she tied the meaning of life to a man, the words she used were full of passion and extremely appealed to personal experience and inner feelings. So it's only logical that her desire to build her own business gradually surfaced. The premise of love in the modern sense is the independence and equality of personality. And the foundation of marriage is this form of love. This is the first reason why this play cannot be established in China.

The second reason is related to the first. I noticed that the heroine, her mother, her lawyer all had a better life after her husband left. (btw, it's quite true that the actress' mother of the heroine has a gay husband...) I wonder if this is unlikely to happen in China. I have an immature opinion: if you live in China, on the premise that you and your partner are kind, caring, and supportive of gender equality (unfortunately, this premise is often not satisfied), get married It's more risk-taking than not getting married.

The reasons behind it cannot be detailed, nor need to be detailed. It's already a mass of loose sand, how can you survive if you don't stick together? In contrast, it is much easier to live as an individual in the environment the film reflects. In our place, many people, especially women, even if they can't find a good man and want to get married, it's not just because they are stupid, they choose the less rotten apple among the two rotten apples.

Of course, the film depicts the story of a specific class. Due to the lack of relevant knowledge, it is also beyond the scope of the film itself, so the class dimension is omitted.

View more about Marriage Story reviews

Extended Reading

Marriage Story quotes

  • Nora Fanshaw: People don't accept mothers who drink too much wine and yell at their child and call him an asshole. I get it. I do it too. We can accept an imperfect dad. Let's face it, the idea of a good father was only invented like 30 years ago. Before that, fathers were expected to be silent and absent and unreliable and selfish, and can all say we want them to be different. But on some basic level, we accept them. We love them for their fallibilities, but people absolutely don't accept those same failings in mothers. We don't accept it structurally and we don't accept it spiritually. Because the basis of our Judeo-Christian whatever is Mary, Mother of Jesus, and she's perfect. She's a virgin who gives birth, unwaveringly supports her child and holds his dead body when he's gone. And the dad isn't there. He didn't even do the fucking. God is in heaven. God is the father and God didn't show up. So, you have to be perfect, and Charlie can be a fuck up and it doesn't matter. You will always be held to a different, higher standard. And it's fucked up, but that's the way it is.

  • Bert Spitz: You know what this is like? This is like that joke about the woman at the hairdresser, she's going to Rome. You know this?

    Charlie: I don't.

    Bert Spitz: This woman is at her hairdresser, and she says, "I'm going to Rome on Holiday." And he says, "Oh, really? What airline are you taking?" She says, "Alitalia." He says, "Alitalia? Are you crazy? That's the worst - that's terrible. Don't take that. Where you gonna stay?" She says, "I'm gonna stay at the Hassler." "The Hassler? What, are you kidding? They're renovating the Hassler. You'll hear hammering all night long. You won't sleep. What are you gonna see?" She says, "I think I'm gonna try to go the Vatican." "The Vatican? You'll be standing in line all day long. You'll never get to see anything."

    Charlie: I'm sorry, Bert, am I paying for this joke?