How afraid are Young People in China of marriage?
Recently, the case of Internet celebrity Ram being burned to death by pouring gasoline on her ex-husband finally came to an end, and her ex-husband was eventually sentenced to death for intentional homicide.
After the verdict came out, netizens felt sorry for Ram while brushing the topic of fear of marriage on the hot search again.
Judging from the data, China Youth Daily once did a survey, and the results showed that 61.2% of the respondents had a tendency to fear marriage, and 8% of them admitted that their fear of marriage was extremely serious.
According to data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in September, the number of legally registered marriages in China in 2020 was 9.131 million pairs, down 30.1% from 2014.
What makes young people now have such a serious fear of marriage?
After watching this new drama, you may be able to find the answer -
maid
Maid
Directed By: John Wells / Ensinha Stewart
Writers: Molly Smith Metzler / Marcus Gardley / Rebecca Brewster
Starring: Margaret Curry / Nick Robinson / Leila Neva Whit / Andy McDowell
Premiere: 2021-10-01 (USA)
Episodes: 10
Episode length: 60 minutes
Produced by Netflix, Douban 8.6, nearly half of the audience gave five stars.
This is a "documentary of women's struggles", and the protagonist of the story is called Alex.
Alex was originally a flower girl with a dream of writing, doing waiter work in a restaurant.
Once, while sharing her text at a restaurant, she looked at Sean, a bartender at a nearby bar.
After falling in love with Sean, Alex moves into her boyfriend's trailer.
Alex often sat on his pink couch preparing his writing lessons and watched Sean prepare his cycling plan.
At this time, the couples are still planning for their dreams and futures, and smiles often appear on their faces.
But she didn't know that her dreams would soon be shattered, and she would soon be plunged into a life of upheaval and displacement.
She was pregnant.
As all marriage phobes expected, things began to shift in the other direction.
Sean first comforted Alex.
But Sean was furious after learning that Alex had no intention of having an abortion.
He threw all her stuff out and called her a bitch who had ruined his life.
Sean's sudden change shocked Alex.
Since then, she has been living in infinite fear.
Sean has an alcoholic problem.
Once, when he was drunk, he was furious because of the dirty dishes that had not been washed, and he hit alex with his fist on the wall of the hole in the wall in front of Alex.
Looking at the glass slag in his daughter Maddy's hair, Alex finally couldn't bear it.
One night, Alex fled the house with his daughter.
Alex took the first step toward change, not knowing what awaited her in the future.
Do you go back to your violent boyfriend's house and continue to endure life, or do you want to wander with your daughter hungry and sleeping?
Alex chose the latter.
Because she knew that there might be hope of seeing the light again as she went forward, and going backwards could only be a lifetime abyss.
Unable to find a place to live, Alex goes to the aid station for help, but the huge rescue system in the United States seems to be sound but it is extremely inefficient.
Alex had to get a job in order to get a daycare grant.
But if she wants to find a job, she has to send her daughter to daycare.
In desperation, she sent her daughter to her artist mother, who suffered from bipolar disorder, and then seized the time to do the work of cleaning the maid.
In the home of a wealthy employer, Alex fainted from hunger because he did not have money to eat, missed time and lost his salary, and was even mistaken by his employer as an addict.
When she hurried back to pick up her daughter, she was in a car accident on the road and almost killed her daughter.
After the accident, she lost custody of her daughter.
In the first episode alone, Alex's encounter was enough to make the audience in front of the screen feel bad.
Although the play is positioned as a comedy, the whole film is full of the pain of the heroine's struggle on the survival line.
Hard-earned wages can't even feed themselves, and my daughter, who lives in a transitional house full of mold infestations, has been sick.
After escaping from her alcoholic boyfriend, her daughter's parenting problems and life problems became a mountain that weighed on her every day, making her anxious, not to mention her dreams.
But she was also lucky enough to meet her assist teammates who looked like a spicy chicken when she lost her daughter, encouraging her to bravely resist.
At the aid station, she realized for the first time that even if she was not injured, the "emotional abuse" she suffered was domestic violence and could call for help.
In the employer's house, although the status of the two people is very different and they have an unpleasant quarrel at the beginning, they have slowly reconciled later.
Alex and Sean's lives are obviously a tragedy, but if we look closely, this tragedy has continued since the previous generation.
Sean constantly uses love to coerce Alex.
He also wanted to quit drinking and live the life he had dreamed of, but he failed again and again.
Sean's mother, who was also a drug addict, did not provide him with a good childhood from the beginning.
The actress's mother, Andie MacDowell, also plays Alex's mother Paula in the play.
She is an artist who does as she pleases in the play.
Andie MacDowell starred in the Palme d'Or film Sex, Lies and Videotape
Paula, who has been in love with the brain all her life, has been constantly circling between different men after getting rid of her ex-husband who has domestic violence, and has suffered no less than Alex.
Although she had also brought light to Alex, it was only for a moment.
However, the curse of "native family" was broken here at Alex.
Although the conditions are limited, she still does her best to love her daughter and wants to bring her warmth and happiness.
Even though she lived on the floor of the ferry station, her daughter still had a smile on her face.
Alex may not have been successful in her career, but she used all her strength to become a good mother.
Compared with the traditional "female counterattack drama", this drama not only brings inspiration and encouragement, but also shows us the swampy life behind our success.
Director John Wells continued the previous theme of "Shameless" and added a lot of thought to the image.
Let us in front of the screen seem to breathe with the heroine and experience the ups and downs of life together.
The exquisite flashback shots that appear in the film on the one hand increase the fluency of the narrative;
On the other hand, the audience can properly understand the emotions of the protagonist at the right time.
At the end of the series, Alex gets rid of his boyfriend's control after experiencing countless hardships, and his life begins to turn around.
Stephanie Rand, the original author of the novel, is also a single mother in reality.
This film is based on her autobiographical memoir "Maid Floating Life".
Stephanie Rand changed her fate by becoming a best-selling author with her own work.
People at domestic violence shelters say most women don't finally leave until they've tried seven times.
After trying, Alex escaped from the boyfriend of domestic violence, almost escaped from the messy original family, escaped from the lower class that grew up, and achieved a turnaround in life.
But the other people in the play who continue to sink are the destination of most people in reality.
Someone might blame Alex for all she had suffered.
But we may forget that everyone should have the right to choose their own life.
For people in the mud, what can be learned from this play is to dare to take the first step of resistance and change as much as you can.
After all, luck may not be something everyone will encounter, but courage can.
*Author: Myrtle