Recently, a new American drama has been released.
It is not a suspense film, but it is a thriller.
Obviously bitter and vengeful, but there is a "comedy" label?!
The title of the film, "Maid", at first glance, is thought to be about a profession.
Staying up late to brush up on 10 episodes, the plot peak loop, it is really enjoyable, my annual top ten, it is definitely on the list!
Xiao Ai is a girl who loves writing.
She and Shang En, met at a working bar, and the two quickly became lovers.
Later, Xiao Ai moved in with Shane and lived a life of "sentient drinking water".
Until Xiao Ai, accidentally pregnant.
At first, Shane was still like a person, bringing tea and water, feeling that he was going to be a father, and his heart was full of joy.
But then, he suddenly changed his face and asked Xiao Ai to have an abortion.
The reason is also strange, because he wants to go on a bicycle trip.
Xiao Ai refused, so he scolded: You are a prostitute, take your things and roll me!
However, Xiao Ai also dared to be angry and did not dare to speak.
Because after she became pregnant, she quit her job, she didn't have any money on her, her parents had divorced long ago, and she had no one to rely on.
Xiao Ai thought to himself: Maybe after the birth of the child, Shane will slowly change sex.
But with the arrival of her daughter, Maddie, the family's expenses have also become larger.
Shane usually has a very bad attitude towards the little Ai mother and daughter, and often loses his temper.
That night, Shane returned home drunk again.
Walking to the kitchen, I saw that there was a dirty dish that had not been washed, and suddenly I was crazy and shouting.
Little Ai sniffed, and as a result, Shane picked up the dirty bowl and smashed it directly at her.
No matter how ugly the scolding was usually, Xiao Ai silently endured.
But this time, the daughter was almost hit by the glass and cried in fright.
Xiao Ai secretly made a decision.
Late at night, while Shane was asleep, she picked up her daughter, stepped over a pile of glass slag, and escaped from this ghost place.
But how could Shane give up?
He hired a lawyer and took Xiao Ai to court, vowing to snatch his daughter back...
The above story clip is from the newly broadcast "Maid", which is produced by Netflix and won 8.6 on Douban and IMDB.
Director John Wells, whose main work is the "Shameless" (US version) series, he participated in directing every season of the screenwriting, and the rating has not dropped 9.
John Wells
The heroine, Margaret Curry, has participated in the HBO hit TV series "Watchmen the World", and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the FX miniseries "Fossey and Warden" (Douban 8.5).
Stills from Margaret Curry's Fosse and Warden
The male protagonist Nick Robinson, in "Love You, Simon" (more than 200,000 people scored 8.3 points on Douban), played the handsome simon, who is the soul of the play.
In this film, he played an angry and alcoholic domestic violence man, but instead of blindly slagging and rotting, he interpreted the complexity of the role very well.
Stills from Nick Robinson's "Love You, Simon."
This drama related to keywords such as domestic violence, original family, and single mother, adapted from the non-fiction work "The Maid's Story", tells the story of a low-level maid who relies on her own efforts to reverse the difficulties of life.
The prototype of the heroine of this film is the author Stephanie Rand, who records her experience of leaving the domestic violence man in the book, and the various observations when she was a maid also wrote down the heartache and helplessness of a single mother.
Once published, the book became a New York Times bestseller and was recommended by former U.S. President Barack Obama.
The Maid's Tale book cover
Speaking of this drama, when I first watched the first two episodes, many people would feel depressed, because the topic of "domestic violence" itself is very heavy.
At first, Xiao Ai did not feel that he had encountered domestic violence and did not call the police.
When the people at the social service office asked her to go to the domestic violence shelter, she said: I don't want to occupy the beds of the really abused people.
Staff asked: Really masochistic? What about fake masochism? Intimidation? threat?
It wasn't until she was admitted to the shelter that she understood that domestic violence did not only refer to physical violence, but also mental destruction, and what she had been suffering from was Shane's emotional violence.
After becoming pregnant, Little Ai has been living in Shane's trailer house for two years without any source of money.
After the birth of her daughter, she became a stay-at-home mother, but her efforts at home were not seen.
Shane is not like a father at all, angry and drunk, in a good mood to give a good face, in a bad mood to drink crazy.
During the meal, Xiao Ai was unwell, and Shane forced her to sit back at the table;
When Ai decides to leave Shane, he threatens her: Without me, you won't be anything when you go out!
In fact, isn't this PUA?
Mentally controlling you, making you feel that the value of your existence must be dependent on the other person to exist.
Xiao Ai and her daughter spent two years in the trailer, she thought that the situation would slowly improve, but she did not expect it to get worse and worse...
Now as soon as she closed her eyes, she remembered the moment when Shane smashed something that night.
Emotional violence, long time lingering on Xiao Ai's dignity.
But the actions of the people around her almost pushed her into the abyss of despair once again.
For example, when running away from her husband for help, a mutual friend argues for Shane: He is drunk, can't you understand? Don't be so mean.
For example, when Xiao Ai mentioned it to her mother, her mother advised her: You can't leave a good man who wants to change.
Even Ai's father, who said he wanted to be very good, was unwilling to help testify in court, saying: The enemy is alcohol, not Shane; he is so hard, you should tolerate him.
The people closest to him have repeatedly said that Xiao Ai is making a big fuss.
This kind of mental violence, which was jointly created, even penetrated into Xiao Ai's brain and solidified into a pathological consciousness.
After her daughter is snatched away by Shane in court, Ai begins to blame herself for not taking her daughter away: my husband is a good father, and Maddie adores him...
Dani of the domestic violence shelter advised Xiao Ai: Don't deny yourself like this, you are here because he abused you.
Little Ai covered his face and cried: He didn't abuse me, he just punched me in the wall next to my head.
Hearing this, Dani suddenly became serious: Sister, you are sober! A punch in the wall next to you is emotional abuse! The dog will bark before biting, and the next time he will directly punch you in the face!
There is a line in the play: domestic violence grows up slowly like mold.
The news we see is actually a very extreme case of domestic violence that will be exposed.
In fact, before the news was exposed, the parties concerned may be swallowing their voices, and even like Xiao Ai, they did not realize that this was domestic violence.
After listening to Dani's persuasion, Xiao Ai decided to reinvigorate her daughter and finally regained the common custody.
At the domestic violence shelter, Xiao Ai met Dani, who once scolded the weak Xiao Ai to fight.
But later, she chose to return home to the violent man.
Xiao Ai did not understand, the man almost strangled her, why should he go back to abuse?
The old director of the shelter told her: This is not unusual. They went back more than they didn't, and most women had to try 7 times before they finally broke up, and this was the third time Dany had been here, and I had tried five times.
Being aware of a problem does not mean that the problem can be solved immediately.
Because rotten people will not let you go easily.
Seeing Xiao Ai again, Shane said: I made these mistakes because of you, the two of us are born a couple, and neither of us can do without the other...
Being entangled by rotten people will leave serious psychological wounds on the parties, which are invisible scars that haunt their lives like nightmares.
Later, Xiao Ai met Dani on the street, she was no longer as radiant as when she was in the shelter, and pretended not to know Xiao Ai, and the whole person was wrong.
When Xiao Ai ran to the old director for help, she couldn't help it...
"I know you care about her, but it's her own choice, and maybe seeing her today will remind her of her again that she's an independent individual and not an attachment."
In life, there are countless women like Dani who choose to go back, and no one knows what will happen in their lives.
If you do not rise up and do not plan for the future, you will always fall into the position of a victim, even if you leave the rotten person, you will still live an old life and cannot move forward.
As a single mother, Xiao Ai has not had an easy time.
When she went to the social service center for help, before she could speak, people first questioned: Do you have hands and feet to rub the welfare of the poor?
When paying for a subsidy voucher in a supermarket, he is despised by cashiers and other customers;
When she went to work, people saw that she was a novice and pushed her dirty work;
The child is sick, and the boss only cares about business and refuses to let Xiao Ai take sick leave;
Even if there is a social subsidy, it is also a variety of thresholds, and if you do not meet the regulations, you are not eligible;
Sometimes even if you meet the requirements, there is a long list of people waiting to be rescued in front of you, and it is not your turn immediately;
But even if he has participated in 7 kinds of government subsidies and has done the maximum working hours, Xiao Ai earns only 9 yuan more per week, and the box of tampons is gone...
If the child is sick, the income drops directly to a negative value.
Some netizens commented: Under the condition that there are various mechanisms for saving abused women in the United States, it is still so difficult to get rid of the abused environment, and I dare not imagine how single mothers should persist in some countries...
Although life is tight, Xiao Ai has never been willing to let children suffer.
When he fled for the first time, he obviously had little money left on his body, but Xiao Ai still bought a mermaid toy for his daughter.
Maybe in the eyes of some people, they can't even afford to eat, and buy toys for their children?!
But for a mother, nothing is more important than maintaining the world that her child cherishes.
Money can be earned again, but the lack of children's growth process cannot be made up again.
The mother and daughter moved frequently, but in every place, Xiao Ai was carefully decorated, the refrigerator was plastered with photos of love, and the walls of the room were painted with cute animals.
Xiao Ai did her best to give the child all her love.
Just after escaping from those days, Little Ai du lived in Shane's shadow.
She had relied on Shane and did not dare to step out of the trailer, and the confusion of the outside world was unknown, so that before she took the first step, she had already crushed the last nerve of her imagination by the fear of her imagination.
until Shane almost injured his daughter;
Until she found out that as soon as they quarreled, her daughter would crawl into the cupboard in fear and hide, just like herself twenty years ago...
Maybe the holes in the walls that have been smashed can be covered up with photos, but the psychological trauma left by domestic violence affects a person's life.
The old mother took her away, and she took her daughter away, it is so similar, history is always repeating itself.
When Shane shouted: You will be alone when you walk out of this house!
That was the first time Ai had answered so firmly: I know what I will face, but I will not pick the glass out of my daughter's hair again, absolutely not!
All she had was the instinct to be a mother.
Because of what her mother had suffered, Xiao Ai once thought that everything she faced was normal.
It wasn't until she left the abusive man that she began to re-understand the world, and she remembered that her favorite color was sky blue.
After leaving Shane, Xiao Ai was alone in the real world, and finally had enough courage and confidence to defend herself and her daughter's rights.
While working part-time, she took care of her daughter, picked up a pen and insisted on writing, never giving up her literary dream.
Later, Xiao Ai applied for a scholarship to the university and prepared to go to college with her daughter.
With the help of a lawyer, she began to fight back, fighting for full custody of her daughter.
That day, Xiao Ai insisted on personally sending a notice, even if she couldn't get Shane to sign it, she wanted the other party to know: she wasn't afraid of him.
She didn't want her daughter to repeat her tragedy until she grew up and was stuck in that dark cupboard.
At the end of the film, Xiao Ai buys a second-hand car, drives the navigation, and takes her daughter to the dream school...
She has this inner monologue:
Most people bet that single mothers won't be able to finish college, but they don't know the bitterness of my getting there — cleaning 338 toilets, applying for 7 types of government grants, moving 9 times, spending a night on the ferry station grounds, and my daughter's three-year-old year...
The road up the mountain is long and winding, the climb is very hard, but we will climb to the top of the mountain, I will dedicate this new world to my daughter...
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