Looking at the name of the movie, you must have thought Vincent was a saint, right? Be generous and helpful (this is our impression of a saint).... But that's not the case. Vincent is a cynical, foul-mouthed old man who spends his days doing nothing, bubble bars, inviting strippers to his house, chasing debts, gambling on horses, and often making a fuss about people....
A single mother with her child Oliver moved next to Vincent's house to become his neighbor. Their meeting didn't go so well, with two Spanish-speaking truck drivers accidentally crashing the Vincent's tree and fence while reversing, and then the branches slamming into the front cover of one of Vincent's dilapidated convertible sedans....
Vincent relentlessly expressed his displeasure with the new single mother and demanded to lose money! Money! Money! Fix the car, fix the fence, and pay him the tree!
In order to maintain the family, the single mother found a job in the hospital emergency room, which was very busy, and it was difficult to leave work on time, and it was even more difficult to take care of Oliver. Oliver, a young boy, is faced with having just joined a new school and adapting to a new environment, but the classmates who greet him are not so friendly. On the first day, he lost his mobile phone, keys, and clothes, and was bullied by his classmates, and it seems that everyone's life in the play is not so easy.
Oliver, who had lost his keys, couldn't get in, so he walked to Vincent's door next door, hoping to borrow a phone and tell his mother about his situation. Naturally, his busy mother in the emergency room had no time to take care of his needs, so Oliver sat down on the couch at Vincent's house.
Vincent's house was also a mess, with cigarette butts everywhere, a small TV, and a crimson recliner next to the couch, which was Vincent's seat. A white Garfield is Vincent's pet, and I suppose it brings a lot of comfort to this strange old man?
Vincent saw that the mother took care of the child's difficult to get out of the predicament, so he took advantage of the fire and offered to help watch the child tonight, $15 an hour, forced to helplessly, the mother could only agree.
It was dark and there was not much to eat. Vincent found biscuits and sardines in the fridge (this one was actually for cats), and Oliver spent the night on Vincent's couch. When mom came to pick him up from work, he charged her for watching the kids, $15 an hour, and snacks. (This old man is just not so cute.) ）
Vincent also wanted to earn some income other than gambling on horses, and looking at the single mother and son, he felt a chance. Talk to a single mom and ask Oliver to take care of her, $12 an hour. Mom agreed, because the two families lived close together, saving the trouble of pick-up and drop-off, and besides, the time to find a babysitter again, Oliver did not object.
In this way, Vincent took Oliver out of school every day, and when he found out that Oliver was being bullied by his classmates, he taught him how to protect himself as a man and resist the unfair "fist" method. Of course Vincent doesn't change his life because of Oliver, he takes Oliver to bars, goes to horse racing (they won the bet), Oliver also meets strippers, and visits an elegant old man (this is Vincent's wife, paralyzed and suffering from Alzheimer's disease). ）
This is Vincent's life, it's a mess, there's no sense of joy, and you don't know how Vincent's life came to be like this. (Maybe life is like this, it's not all so cute.) ）
The turning point came when Vincent had a stroke. Nursing home collection, creditors to collect debts, before it was time to take the initiative with the debt, Vincent fell down next to the red recliner at home, the two creditors fled in a hurry, or Oliver sent him to the hospital after school.
After the stroke, Vincent lost his language skills, moved a lot slowly, and needed rehabilitation. Life always tests you with one blow after another, whether you like it or not.... Oliver, Mom, and strippers help Vincent with her rehabilitation, re-practicing word pronunciation, squatting up and reading aloud, and struggling to fight fate while cursing fate.
When Vincent was discharged from the hospital, he returned home and found the home in good order. Eating habits were forcibly changed to vegetable-based under the care of strippers, but fate did not spare Vincent. When he came to the nursing home again, he was told that his wife had died while he was recovering and disappearing! He didn't even see her for the last time. What he got was a cardboard box, a cardboard box containing his wife's ashes and personal belongings. Vincent was angry and asked what was going on at the hospital? The hospital said: "Your wife has passed away and we have not been in touch with you for several weeks. We cremated it according to your previous arrangement. Vincent returned home angrily with the suitcase in his hand, angrily throwing all the photographs of his youth that he had treasured into the trash. When life wants to give you a slap, the voice is always so loud.
Oliver secretly saw what was happening through his window, what photos he had retrieved, and he began interviewing people who knew Vincent. There are old friends in the bar, and nurses on duty at nursing homes, and strippers, going to the library to check the materials, Oliver hopes that through his own efforts, he can restore a complete Vincent, a person's life from young to old, what he has experienced, what is his life story. Under a project task at school about finding the "saints" around you, Oliver and his classmates quietly carried out the work of collecting information.
It turned out that Vincent was a veteran.
He fought in the Vietnam War.
He once successfully saved two comrades-in-arms and thus received the medal.
His story has also been in the newspapers.
He loved his wife so much that during the eight years she had been in the nursing home, he had insisted on visiting her every week and sending her a change of clothes.
We see the hidden soft side behind the meanness of a veteran.
What is the meaning of life?
Someone said, "Life is meaningless." ”
Someone said: "The constant exploration of the whole journey of life is the meaning of life." ”
Someone said: "Don't think about this useless problem, living well in the moment is the most important thing, and your hesitation is the biggest cost." ”
Everyone has their own life story, when we are born with the genes of our parents, we can only dominate the fate of 50%, and in the remaining 50%, we are inseparable from the impact of the environment on our growth, our self-perception is constantly separated from the cognition of others to me, it may be a little biased, we are actually constantly revising our own cognition. With both innate genes and acquired circumstances set, how much space is left for us to play freely? It should not be higher than 10%, but just for the possibility of fighting with fate below 10%, we have to treat it with 100 points of effort to fight for any possible 1% chance, this is our daily choice, this is the little space that can finally bring us a little bit of space to fight against fate, it is free will.
Vincent was an ordinary man, a cynical veteran.
In each of us lives a Vincent and an Oliver
Author: Ning Fan
Personal WeChat ID: [growingup123] Please indicate "occupation + city"
Author's introduction: worked, started a business, a veteran of the workplace, a new entrepreneur.
Image: Web capture