Wen | Twenty-Four Bridges LL
Since college, I've loved watching Adam Sandler's films. Now I can casually say that he starred in "Grow up", "First Love 50 Times", "Life Remote Control", "Single Parent Resort" and other works, and "Start from the Heart" is one of my favorites.
Released in the United States in 2007, "From the Heart" ostensibly tells the story of dentist Alan Johnson who met Charlie Farman, a victim of 9/11, and helped the former college roommate gradually come out of his sad memories. But in reality, it's a story about how people in trouble heal each other.
How Charlie gets out of the shadow of his wife and daughter dying in 9/11 with the help of friends is undoubtedly the main line of the movie, and how Allen gets the reverse redemption in the process of helping Charlie is the secondary line of the movie.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1, help is not blindly accommodating</h1>
After 9/11, Charlie lost his wife and daughter and a loving dog. The great mental trauma, and the gap between the momentary transition from a lively and warm family to a lonely and cold life, led him to self-isolation, in an attempt to seal all the memories of his wife and daughter by escaping from the existing reality.
Charlie's performance behavior has a technical term in psychology - post-traumatic stress disorder, so he has long avoided events related to his wife and daughter, and even selectively forgot his former relatives and friends, and when someone evoked the memories of his wife and daughter in front of him, he would become anxious and irritable.
In order to protect this poor person who is trapped in the cage of despair, the way the people around them take can basically be divided into two kinds. One is a group dominated by landladys, creating a relatively isolated environment for Charlie from the outside world, blindly following his wishes to separate his wife and daughter-related events and people.
The other is a group dominated by dentist Alan, who advocates that Charlie be treated. It should be noted that the population advocating treatment is divided into two groups. Allen's faction believed that Charlie should have his own life, with the help of others, to gradually open his heart and get out of the shadow of sadness; the faction of Charlie's father-in-law and mother-in-law believed that coercive measures should be taken, such as restricting personal freedom for a year and receiving mandatory treatment.
Whether it is the landlady or Alan and others, the measures they take are based on good intentions, out of their own understanding and feel that they are good for Charlie. From Charlie's point of view, he no doubt favored the landlady approach and did not interfere with the way he chose to live.
People are accustomed to helping others in an accommodating way, and this "accommodation" is often an escape, which does not help. Of course, it is also not advisable to adopt a coercive approach. In Charlie's specific case, Allen's method is the optimal solution.
Many times help is not blindly accommodating, nor is it a mandatory measure, and gradual guidance may be a relatively good method for both the helper and the helped.
In real life, as ordinary people, when we help relatively vulnerable groups, do we blindly accommodate or ignore their wishes, or do we choose a better method under the premise of respecting them? I am afraid that this is also another topic worth thinking about.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2, individuals need their own space and life</h1>
Allen gets some feedback in helping Charlie in his own way, and that feedback is a good way to help him out of his predicament.
In real life, the helpers themselves are not without difficulties. Even if he is a very good psychologist, it is difficult for him to guarantee that he will not have psychological problems in his life. Moreover, people who are in trouble themselves are more likely to resonate with the misfortunes of others.
Alan is more empathetic to what happened to Charlie because he is in trouble with his marriage and work. Selfishly, he doesn't necessarily want to get some "reward" from helping Charlie.
In marriage, Allen believes that his wife did not give him enough personal space to leave him without his own hobbies. Can't a married man have his own hobbies? He often had such questions.
At work, it may be because peach blossom luck is more prosperous, and Alan will be "harassed" by female patients. For example, a woman named Donna once wanted to help him do something indescribable in the clinic.
According to Allen, he likes the dentist's profession and fills his teeth for patients, but he doesn't like all patients. He believes that some patients do not have teeth to fill, but other aspects. Donna wrote a letter of complaint to the clinic after being rejected, and instead of defending him, the boss reprimanded him and let him solve it himself, which made Alan even more distressed about the job.
The pressure from marriage and work makes Alan live as if he has lost himself, and when he is confused, he subconsciously wants to establish a relatively independent space and life in the hope of finding a breathing space. And this kind of uncommunicative escape also made him fall into the deeper quagmire of marriage and work.
In today's increasing emphasis on individuality, people are paying more and more attention to maintaining a certain amount of private space and life. When this demand conflicts with marriage or work and cannot be resolved for the time being, the individual begins to resist the surrounding environment, does not want to communicate, isolates himself, and falls into trouble.
It is because of this contradiction that Allen has become estranged from his wife and work. And this crack is gradually turning into a dense web as the contradiction deepens, dragging Alan deeper into the predicament.
The same is true for Charlie, although he does deserve help and treatment. But this treatment should not be based on restricting his personal freedom, and the coercive approach brings about what could be worse outcomes. What he needs is to gradually get out of the predicament with the help of others, but in the process he needs to maintain his own space and life.
In fact, not only Charlie and Allen, but also in marriage, work or other aspects, the existence of individuals needs to have their own space and life. This is the freedom of the individual in the true sense of the word, and it is also the opportunity for the individual to free up the self and have a deep dialogue with the soul.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >3, two lonely souls healing each other</h1>
The unhappiness of marriage and work has left Alan in trouble, and he himself does not know what to do. Therefore, after meeting Charlie, he wants to do his best to help this former friend. On the one hand, it must be out of friendship, on the other hand, why not a redemption of himself?
Charlie is not repulsive to Alan's proximity, and one of the reasons is because Alan doesn't know everything about his wife and daughter. After a period of solitude, he desperately needed someone who wouldn't have any problems to be friends. In addition, it is also because he sees that Alan is the same kind of person as him, and he is also trapped in the quagmire of life.
These two lonely souls, unconsciously close to each other after encountering each other by chance, also hold the same idea of expecting to get "rewards" from each other, and heal each other with the help of each other.
At the end of the film, Charlie confessed his heart to his father-in-law and mother-in-law outside the courtroom, explaining that he did not forget his wife and daughter, but deliberately pretended to forget because he could not forget. It can be seen that he has made up his mind to come out of the shadows of the past, but it will take time.
Because of Charlie's relationship, Alan rebelled against his boss and the unhappiness of his work, and at the same time explained and confessed to his wife. This represents that he has stepped out of the predicament of work and marriage, stepped into a new stage of life, and gained a new life.
"Starting from the Heart" tells the story of two lonely souls who, after meeting by chance, began to redeem and heal each other.
Through such a story, the film tells the audience the positive meaning that friendship can be embodied in people's difficult situations. As the film's name suggests, the best way to heal trauma may be to "start from the heart," and that "from the heart" requires what friendship can give.