Today is Christmas, and for many Western countries, it is as important as the Spring Festival.
Movies related to Christmas, like our New Year movies, are mostly comedy and warm theme dramas, and this "True Love Supreme" is one of the best, which is simply a must-see film in the Christmas program. It is also a work that many people revisit every Christmas.
The film cost only $40 million, but it grossed $247 million worldwide that year.
Not only is it popular in the West, but many viewers in the mainland also regard it as a must-see film for Christmas. To say that the most likable Christmas movie, except that it is probably "How Beautiful Life is",
And this "True Love Supreme", in fact, has also accompanied us through 15 Christmases.
The film is set 5 weeks before Christmas. It consists of 9 short stories that are interrelated and independently formed into chapters.
The characters and plots of the small story are related to a certain extent, the protagonist in one story is the supporting role of another story, the characters are interspersed with each other, the plot develops separately, and the structure of the 9 stories is loose but not scattered, messy but not chaotic.
Which story comes to mind first?
Story 1: The weak prime minister finally rushed to the crown and became angry
Story 2: The widowed father encourages His stepdaughter to pursue love
Story 3: Shy groomsmen Christmas card confession no regrets
How delicate the heart of the person who can come up with this way of confessing must be
Story 4: Frustrated writers don't talk about language and hug beautiful people
Story 5: Chef Di Si went straight to the United States for one night four times
Story 6: Middle-aged couples tolerate and bear the itch for seven years
Story 7: Action movie actors sprout true feelings on set
Before the start of filming, I deliberately warmed my hands, which is simply the conscience of the industry
Story 8: Rock star comeback and turn back to good brothers
Story 9: Dedicated to the girl bitter love male god let go of the hand for the relatives
The themes of these stories are not all love, but also family and friendship.
They are as beautiful as they are. The 9 stories tell a theme, that is, the theme song Loves Everywhere, which has been adapted with one word, love is omnipresent, all-encompassing, omnipotent. Because Christmas belongs not only to lovers, but also to family and friends. A true Christmas doesn't leave a single dog behind.
The biggest contributor to True Love is director and screenwriter Richard Curtis. Curtis specializes in romance and comedy, and his works include "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Notting Hill", "Time and Space Traveler", etc., as well as the indelible monument in the history of British comedy film, "Black Sir". What impresses most is that there are always countless small details of love in his works.
For example, comparing the time the heroine in Story 9 worked in the company and liked the male god designer, we can know that she fell in love with him after entering the company for half an hour, and the standard love at first sight.
The groomsmen in Story 3 rush out of the house after their sweetheart discovers that he has a crush on her, and everyone he meets carries a pile of shopping bags. On this family holiday, he was alone and shivering in the cold wind.
In Story 1, the Prime Minister knocked on the door one night to ask the whole 100 families in order to find Natalie, and only then did he know that the girl next door was looking for.
The actor's performance also made the film. From the age of eight to eighty, all disguises are faded in the face of loved ones.
The light in the eyes
The excitement in the back
There are also people who are hard to meet, and when they are excited, they are incoherent and then hate themselves for being stupid, even the prime minister.
Generally speaking, movies composed of small stories tend to turn blunt, resulting in emotional breakpoints in the audience. Fortunately, "True Love Supreme" does not have this problem, and the connection between the story and the story is smooth and natural.
For example, a shot that tells the story of what happened after the wedding in the previous story also turns to the story of the chef boy's American love hunt.
A single-love designer girl's spit led to an interview with a rock star.
The last sentence of the rock singer's radio interview followed by the opening of the eight prime ministers.
The continuous transitions are fresh and naturally unpretentious. And what makes me feel the most is this transition:
In Story 2, the widower played by Liam Neeson lifts the coffin at his wife's funeral, and at this time it is the funeral background music by-bye Baby that his wife chose before she died. It's a playful, light-hearted pop song by the band Bay City Rollers. Being able to choose such a song for one's own funeral, even if the character has not officially appeared, has left a deep impression on the audience.
As soon as the camera turns, the groomsmen who are worried about the wedding are watching the beloved girl and his groom's friend dancing. The same song, two scenes, but belong to two people who are equally heartbroken.
Over the years, I've met people who love this movie so much that they have to re-brush it every year, and I've met people who scoff at it and think it's a bowl of MSG soup. Of course, it does not have any deep philosophy, but such a film still has its own need to exist.
After all, everyone encounters a lot of bad things every year, if you can watch such a heart-warming movie at Christmas, to get rid of the negative energy that has been backlogged for a year, even if it is only two hours, what is the harm.
Fourteen years later, in 2017, a few days after the London attacks and the Moscow Metro bombings, the film's sequel, True Love: The Red Nose Day Special, was released in the UK. It tells us that the couple we were together 14 years ago is all right, and even if something terrible happens in the world, there are still movies and all the good things that can soothe us.
True Love: Red Nose Day Special
Finally, to use the lines in True Love Supreme to all those who think they are not loved and that the world is terrible:
Sorry to misplace, it's this one
But if the end is not satisfactory, then meditate on this sentence
Therefore, the real touching thing about "True Love Supreme" is that it uses a series of intimate and warm small stories, one after another déjà vu moments, to talk about the warmth and emotion in those lives.
This is probably the meaning of Christmas.