This cheating movie that set a Guinness remake record, do you really understand it?

Biu than by

2024-05-28 21:42Posted in Shanghai Entertainment Creators

The original Italian version of "Perfect Strangers"

Three couples and a divorced single male friend meet for dinner, and at the suggestion of the hostess of the party, everyone hands over their mobile phones to play a "confession bureau", and discloses everyone's text messages, calls and emails. In the end, it got out of control and evolved into a Shura field where old friends fought in chaos......

Even if you haven't watched the original 2016 Italian movie "Perfect Strangers", I'm afraid you haven't been able to avoid all kinds of video commentary and know a lot about the plot. You must know that this film has set a Guinness World Record for copyright remakes, and there have been film remakes in more than 30+ countries and regions so far...... The Chinese version of 2018 is "Crazy Call" starring Ma Li, Tong Dawei and others.

Chinese remake of "Ringing Call"

Just recently, I rewatched the stage version of "Perfect Strangers", and after reviewing it, I have a new understanding of the plot and characters. At different stages of life, especially in the field of social opinion, when various ideas are rapidly iterating and confronting, we will continue to have new understandings and perspectives on the relationship between the sexes. Compared with recommending partners to watch together, it is not mainly to play a "warning" and "deterrent" role, but both agree to "cherish each other" and "cherish the present". After all, gamblers in emotional relationships will also have a fluke mentality, and the thinking brought by the so-called literary and artistic creation has little impact on this group of people. After all, the "agreement" cannot foresee the future, and it only gives emotional value to the moment.

Domestic stage version of "Perfect Strangers"

The point of fiction given our most extreme and dramatic situations is to try to understand why the problem arises, the positions of the parties, and the final game, and to see all the possibilities for one's own choice, rather than standing in the standpoint of a bystander to determine what is right and which is wrong. Based on this premise, looking at the three couples and quadruple relationships in this film, I will have some new ideas, and welcome friends who have watched various film versions and drama versions to discuss together.

Italian original Bianca Cosimo

Cosimo Bianca

Let's start with the simplest pair, Cosimo and Bianca. A combination of a so-called playboy and a "love brain" little girlfriend.

Cosimo, a man to death is a representative of the youth. He has frequently failed in his career, but he has repeatedly succeeded in love. When he is middle-aged, he not only has a little wife in her early 20s, but also hooks up with colleagues in the company, and even the sister-in-law Eva who is at the top of the small circle is also in his pocket. But in fact, his "love field pride" is just the result of not refusing to come.

Indeed, he is the best at lying - he arranged the plot for his colleagues in advance, and when he received a text message, he could also ask his wife to help explain that it was just work-related. You don't have to be like Marco to temporarily ask Pepe to change his mobile phone, which only increases the unknown risk. But in fact, he is the most difficult to control in the face of risks, and he is also the least confident one. So he can only find a girl in her 20s who believes in "romantic love" as a stable partner, thinking that he can easily handle it. But when Bianca's ex-boyfriend called, his rampage directly exposed his external strength and middle strength. Eventually, when Bianca finally sees his true colors and decides to end the relationship, he becomes the weaker party in an attempt to redeem himself.

Bianca, as for it, looks like a silly white sweet love brain. easily listened to Cosimo's old man's declaration of love that "he is different from others" and entered marriage, dressed up carefully in order to integrate into his husband's middle-aged circle, worked hard to please, and even suppressed and even tried to persuade himself to overcome his fear of childbirth in order to satisfy his husband's desire to have children. also handles the ex-relationship in a measured manner and understands self-love. And behind this, in fact, the girls have not yet awakened before the "following the crowd". Among the three couples, she is the most willing to stick to her husband, and their affection and intimacy even have an element of showmanship. But it's not so much that she enjoys it, but that she thinks that "right" and "good" should be so, trying to play a good wife and a perfect lover. But we shouldn't be too her in her 20s, if there are such girls in real life, being betrayed is not a kind of growth, so that they can better listen to their inner needs, instead of ignoring their own deep needs for the sake of worldly opinions.

The original Italian Pepe

Pepe

Let's talk about Pepe. He is a marginal person in a small circle, and because of his sexual orientation, he is destined to be a marginal person in society. Although the plot is not directly explained, we can all see that he is the weakest one in the small circle developed by this alumni, and it is even very likely that he has been lightly bullied by three other men, so when he reaches middle age, some of his people-pleasing personality traits are still revealed. In the face of Marco's strong pressure to change his mobile phone, he had no choice but to compromise. And when others are invited to football matches, they only dare to complain two sentences and can't be tough. When his speech was repeatedly interrupted, he only smiled helplessly.

Of course, it was precisely because of his weakness that inspired the "love" of the other three female partners on the scene, so Pepe got closer to them. But in essence, wives are still the ones watching the play, and the reason why they are strongly curious about Pepe's partner is also because they don't believe that men like Pepe can have a truly attractive and excellent female partner - traditional heterosexual women will subconsciously accept social discipline in mate selection and choose more masculine men, rather than men with more sensitive and delicate empathy ability - because this advantage will be equated with "non-male" in social discipline.

So, is Pepe the "perfect victim"? Not necessarily, because there are other people's more explosive "black material", and the conflict between him and his same-sex partner will inevitably be ignored.

Carefully reviewed, the conflict between him and his same-sex partner is whether to come out or not. Apparently, Pepe lied to her partner that she was sick at home instead of attending an old friend's party, because she was afraid that the other party would ask to introduce her to an old friend. Apparently, he had talked to his partner about the party and revealed what this group of so-called old friends had done to him, otherwise the other party would not have been so angry that he ended up going to the appointment alone.

Does his same-sex partner just need a so-called "name"? Apparently not. He sees through Pepe's cowardly flattery, and hopes to encourage the first step in rebuilding his life by coming out to the small circle.

So let's look at why Pepe reacted so much to Marco's reply to "go to the party".

First of all, Pepe's personality is not good at lying, and for his lover, he is afraid that the lie of lying about his illness will be exposed.

But we also have to see a series of reactions from Pepe, whether it is emphasizing personal privacy and personal space, or in the end, fortunately not bringing a partner, so that the loved one can be spared, in fact, he is looking for a posteriori support for his decision to "go to the meeting alone without a partner", which he knows is not brave enough.

One of the doubts in the theatrical version is that he says he wants to go, but he doesn't actually go out until Bianca leaves. Go before a pass output. However, it can also be explained from another angle, that is, he wants to eat melons to the end, and after everyone's "black material" is exposed, as the one with the lowest psychological status in the group, he has obtained some kind of "spiritual victory". This is the final declaration of "cutting the seat". It was not this moment that he saw their true colors, but this moment of spiritual victory.

Italian original Carlotta & Marco

Mark Carlotta

Then there's Marco and Carlotta. If it weren't for the stage version, I really wouldn't have realized the "moralistic" side of Marco. In fact, isn't this the two sides of the so-called "machismo" in traditional society?

This made me further realize that on the surface this is a combination of "strong elite lawyers" and "weak full-time wives". But in a sense, Carlotta is the one in the relationship who is in a high psychological position (note that it is a psychological high position rather than an actual position). The stage version weakens the woman's crime, the original movie version is the husband who died in a car accident, and the stage version is an innocuous traffic accident.

This change does avoid the problem of explaining the ending of his wife's arrest, but it also makes his wife's humility and collapse seem a little "hypocritical".

In fact, she did treat her husband with a low face, gave everything for her two children, and tolerated her mother-in-law encroaching on the small family space. However, unlike the general sense of vulnerability, she can openly complain in her husband's social circle about the fact that she has not had sex for many years (which is tantamount to openly provoking the male authority of her macho husband); In private, she began to contact the nursing home to arrange for her mother-in-law to move in, and knew how to use the suppression of public opinion by friends to reverse her husband's mind; After being in a drunk driving accident, you can also ask the lawyer's husband to be willing to take the blame for his professional image at the risk of having his professional image seriously damaged and his career being hit. Although she was also tormented by the relationship and was on the verge of a mental breakdown, her eventual hysteria deterred her husband, who had seized her handle. We can know that if it weren't for this "guilt", then she would not have had to make such a gesture a long time ago. But on the other hand, what caused the root cause of her alcoholism and madness? In my opinion, it is motherhood punishment.

The machismo Marco is not only the initiator of the punishment of motherhood, but also the ultimate victim of the punishment of motherhood, the "victim" of machismo. As mentioned above, the positive result of machismo is a sense of justice and responsibility.

When Rock and Pepe faced litigation problems in their careers, he offered to help. And when he was questioned and discriminated against by all the staff about his "sexuality" because he exchanged mobile phones with Pepe, he prevented Pepe's confession and chose to bear the insult from Cosimo and the collapse of his wife Carlotta for him. You must know that for straight men, coming out is obviously more "social death" than cheating. But Marco also practiced the so-called "responsibility" of machismo, and personally pushed the intimate relationship into the abyss. Whether he takes his mother to live and ignores his wife's feelings, whether he is guilty of his wife, or tries to fight a lawsuit for Pepe, he unilaterally thinks that he will carry everything and carry the family for others, while completely ignoring the real needs of the other party and ignoring the benefits. As for himself, the decision against his heart caused him to obtain psychological compensation through "mental derailment".

Italian original Eva Locke

Locke Eva

Finally, let's talk about the party conveners, Locke and Eva.

I saw that many people were scolding Eva after watching the movie/drama, thinking that she was the most malicious one, and she was sure that her cheating partner was on the scene and would not intentionally call outside, so she proposed to play this game, and in the drama version, it was true that she was the only one who was not fully exposed.

My first impression of watching movies and dramas is also this. But looking back, it is easy to judge a wicked person, but why there is evil is worth playing. Gaining psychological balance by exposing the dark side of others without exposing herself is at best her superficial motivation.

And from a deeper psychological analysis, she actually wants her cheating to be exposed more than anyone else, so as to end this marriage. She proposed to play this game, but deep down she had a tendency to self-destruct.

The conversation with her husband about her daughter at the beginning of the film has already been revealed: she is also living in a stage play that intends to leave the family, and needs conflict to define herself and find a way to leave. The drama version only left Marco's sentence "Serial killers are just to be discovered".

So we have to ask why Eva wants to be discovered. Let's talk about my understanding. As a counselor, she is probably also very clear about her own problems. Essentially, it was her lack of courage to leave the relationship in a healthy and normal way. After all, in everyone's opinion, her husband is too good, and she has no reason to leave him.

Italian original Locke Eva

So we have to ask why we have to leave our husband when he is so good.

This answer is not easy to detect. That is the sense of moral oppression in Locke. From Eva's father's status as a surgeon and her husband Locke's complaints, we know that in the initial union, Eva and Locke were in different classes - the story of the elite rich daughter who fell in love with the hard-working poor boy. is different from Chen Shimei, who has achieved success in his career after marriage and quickly turned his face, Locke has always been a "good gentleman", good to his friends, good to his daughter, and keeping a distance from customers. But as the years passed, the differences between the different classes soon became apparent, and passionate love could not bridge the gap between the ages.

You must know that the reason why the daughter has a secular sense of "getting married" is essentially to escape and break with the control of the original family, and the temperament of the poor boy is also different from the son-in-law she came into contact with. It is conceivable that when she chose Locke in the first place, there must have been an affirmation of his kindness and gentle efforts. But these advantages are also two sides of the same coin, especially when passion and love fade.

The stage version reinforces the husband's "didactic" tendencies. What is shown through the difference between Eva and Locke's parenting concepts is not her disappointment in each other, but the repression of the other party who will always occupy the moral high ground. And as the plot unfolds, Locke always complains that he is not favored by his father-in-law, and laughs at himself as a third-rate plastic surgeon who is only worthy of surgery for lower-class civilians. This self-loathing complaint, he not only said it privately to his wife, but also publicly at the party. Putting herself in the position of a victim means that Eva, as the daughter of her father-in-law, has to bear part of the pressure of public opinion for her father.

As for the derailment, the treatment of the film version seems to imply that Locke is known to be Cosimo. However, I prefer that he didn't realize it until later, otherwise he defined his wife's breast augmentation as also trying to improve their marital relationship, which is more like adding "moral pressure".

However, whether he knows it or not, in the face of problems with his wife, Locke has a somewhat avoidant personality. We are absolutely sure that he is an excellent model in terms of responsibilities and obligations as a father, as a husband, and as a "big brother" in a small circle. But he is not even as good as Cosimo when it comes to communication in intimate relationships - at least Bianca's misunderstanding of keeping in touch with her ex-boyfriend is resolved, and he can still express his unacceptance and unhappiness directly. Although this requirement is a double standard, being his partner is a clear idea of where his boundaries are.

But Locke obviously adopted a bottomless tolerance for his wife. Regarding the principled issue of cheating, he actually hoped to try to unilaterally solve his "concern" by seeing a psychiatrist.

Let's look at the results of the man's marriage counseling: he tells his wife not to turn every discussion into a struggle for power, and that the person who takes a step back is not necessarily weak. The only long-term couple is one of the two, whoever chooses to take a step back. Taking a step back is sometimes a step forward.

The subtext of this passage could not be more obvious, that is, I want to live with you, so I choose to back down, not because I am weaker than you, but because I am stronger than you.

For normal people, hearing this sentence is actually a kind of comfort, and it is also a kind of outpouring of love. But from the point of view of Eva, who is no longer in a very healthy psychological state, this is tantamount to a kind of kidnapping, a sentence from the moral high ground, and it is wrong to judge you, Eva, but I have decided not to bother with you. Does Eva need this kind of victory without a fight? Apparently she felt a deeper depression. will test the other party's bottom line with more indulgent behavior.

So she found the circle "moral depression" Cosimo. She didn't love him at all, even if she augmented his breast—her pleasing—in a sense self-destructive, even if she threw away her earrings in anger because he had a fourth—what she thought was a kind of conquest for the other party was nothing more than a stamp collect.

So in terms of judging right and wrong, Locke is indeed innocent. But if Locke still loves Eva and only wants to live his life with this "scumbag" in the eyes of outsiders, and wants to solve the problems between him and Eva, he must also recognize that it is avoidance and connivance that have caused such a situation. Whether it's trying to stop everyone from playing games, or whitewashing the peace of his wife's cheating.

Perhaps we can reverse Locke's marriage counseling quote. It is true that intimate relationships are not a battlefield for power, but long-term relationships are always evenly matched. If someone has to take a step back, it must be the one who crosses the line, the one who is strong. On the contrary, by playing the role of a saint in an intimate relationship, I hope that by playing the role of a saint in an intimate relationship, I will not arouse the conscience of the other person, but will only lead the other person to become a more indulgent villain little by little.

Therefore, facing problems head-on and daring to conflict is also an important lesson in intimate relationships. You know, conflict in intimate relationships is not about winning or losing, but about establishing boundaries. Locke doesn't have to self-deprecate in the "ridicule" of his wife's father, nor should he blindly forbear knowing that the other party is cheating, and he shouldn't even secretly form an alliance with his daughter when his wife clearly opposes the child's "early love". All issues should be open and honest, and each party's position and persistence should be clarified. Eventually, accept the outcome of reaching a consensus or parting ways in the conflict.

The stage version retains the ending of the parallel world of the original "Perfect Strangers". Such a relatively pessimistic ending with a reserved sense of black comedy may not be intended to tell us not to test human nature. In fact, whether it is cheating, the seven-year itch, or the midlife crisis, it seems to be about both sides of an intimate relationship, but the root cause may lie in our self-perception that we cannot adjust in time at different stages. "As long as everyone else has a dark side, I'm not guilty", "As long as I don't get discovered, it's okay", "As long as I don't take a substantive step, it doesn't count", "As long as I don't debunk it, I can be treated as if the other party didn't make a mistake"...... These various definitions can deceive others, but don't deceive yourself.

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