"Gao Lu finally married the right person this time." After the TV series "Under the Warm Sun" was launched on CCTV8 and Mango TV, the audience rushed to tell each other on Weibo.
In previous works, the role played by Gao Lu always gave the impression of a unsatisfactory marriage, but this time, she was almost spoiled into a treasure at home.
But "Under the Warm Sun" is obviously not a sugar-sprinkling sweet drama that loves couples, and it is not a "second-child propaganda drama" roughly defined by some people, just like its original name "Modern City", which covers the life problems and emotional difficulties encountered by men and women of different ages and classes in a city.
As an urban topic drama, "Under the Warm Sun" involves the current concern of the "second child", discusses the balance between women's career and family, explores the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in modern cities and the struggle of young people who have just entered the workplace...
In the first five episodes, "born without a second child" is the engine of the plot, which is very easy to cause controversy. But in fact, "Under the Warm Sun" has a relatively decent expression on this issue, which can be said later.
Everything is insightful and learned, and human emotions are articles. "Under the Warm Sun" actually deeply expresses the knowledge of "Chinese-style relations" in the depiction of the workplace and family.
Realistic workplace ecology
The plight of women in the workplace, the immaturity and growth of young workers, these settings have almost become the standard in the current urban dramas. What is rare is that "Under the Warm Sun" takes the relationship in the workplace as the entry point and digs out a few new ideas in the text.
Song Sining (Gao Lu) is the ideal professional woman, who is capable of doing things and has good professional qualities, which is the basis for her to become a human resources director. But even in this position, it still has to face the gender discrimination of individual senior executives in the company.
After all, doing human resources work, Song Sining is well versed in the rules of the workplace. She never confronts leaders who discriminate against women, but she knows how to get along with Chen Songying (Chen Zihan), a senior executive who is also a woman. On the road to promotion, Chen Songying has become her powerful backing.
Chen Songying conforms to the audience's imagination of a strong woman, walking with the wind, vigorous, from a sassy dress style to a stilted attitude of doing things without a word, making it difficult to ignore her presence on any occasion. She wholeheartedly helped Song Sining, not only because of female friendship, but also cultivated a powerful assistant for herself, at least in terms of personnel, Song Sining never discounted her work.
Song Sining's younger brother Song The only one (played by Leng Jiyuan) is a young man with a head who has not yet been beaten by society, who came to Beijing with full enthusiasm and promised to "buy a big house here in three years", but unexpectedly repeatedly hit a wall. Although he was still a senior hr, he did not know how to drive him in a short period of time.
The most interesting thing is that Song Sining's husband Li Junlong (Jiang Yi), although he owns a company and is his own boss, he can't control it like Chen Songying, and always maintains a delicate relationship with his partners. Going out for a meeting, the partner "rubbed" his car has become a habit, eating a kebab can eat more than six thousand yuan of reimbursement documents. At the moment when the company is in turmoil, even if he has doubts and dissatisfaction, Li Junlong can only hide it.
Song Who first entered the workplace is the only arrogant and conceited, Song Sining in the critical period of his career emphasizes the left and right sources, Chen Songying, who has a successful career, is at ease in the company, and Li Junlong, who is at the top of the food chain in the workplace, is walking on thin ice... "Under the Warm Sun" is not a workplace drama, there is no space to present the industry expertise in depth, but through a small cut, it shows the audience the general workplace ecology faced by the post-70s, post-80s, and post-90s, so that people of every age can perceive their own shadow from the subtleties.
Life is a dilemma
In life, Song Sining, who has entered middle age, still has three major difficulties to break through.
The first is family. Song Sining and Li Junlong should be regarded as a model couple, married for many years not only do not have seven years of itch, but more and more sweet, which is naturally inseparable from the husband's careful care for his wife. Yes, there is finally a topic drama that breaks through the scumbag narrative and arranges a model husband for the heroine. In the words of Li Junlong, "If I were to be second in the whole city of Beijing, no one would dare to come first." ”
Bringing tea and water to wash the feet of the wife is the norm of life, and sending flowers from time to time and carefully prepared candlelit dinners are romantic condiments, and the couple's love heat never seems to have subsided.
But they also have knots that they can't untangle for the time being. For example, on the issue of parenting, the two have never been able to agree. Song Sining believes in chicken baby education, and Li Junlong hopes that children can grow up happily. Song Sining is more like setting up her daughter's education as a precision instrument, just running according to the program. Due to her low participation, she was kicked out of the parent group and mistakenly thought by the teacher that her daughter lived in a single-parent family without a mother...
Li Junlong was whimsical, the couple reborn one, and raised children with their own ideas, which made people cry and laugh. But apparently, the parenting differences have not yet been resolved, and the problem of the second child has been put on the table.
Obviously, the husband loves children, and he is willing to stay with the children even at high-end parties where he can expand his network. Song Sining does not resist the second child, but under the premise of not delaying the career, scientific and reasonable pregnancy preparation.
How can it be a matter of two children, the couple has not yet reached an agreement, and the mother-in-law and father-in-law over there are also involved. At this time, the contradiction between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and weng daughter-in-law will arise.
You see, life is a problem stacked on top of another. Song Sining not only has her own problems to solve, but also has to deal with the relationship with her original family. The younger brother came to Beijing to join his sister, and incidentally brought his newly married wife over. Song Sining could only vacate the study, and had to entrust people to do things to solve their work problems.
But this is by no means the popular "brother-in-law" narrative on the market. In fact, in order to let Song Sining help Song the only one, their father made a special trip to Beijing, apologized for Song Sining's request, and even took out a stack of cash in the name of giving the unborn "grandson" a red envelope.
"Under the Warm Sun" actually presents the cognitive bias of the sisters and brothers: the younger brother's social experience and way of dealing with the world are difficult to say, and he also regards his sister as a relative who can rely on everything and does not ask for anything in return. Song Sining has the care of her brother, but after all, she has her own family, and she must consider the feelings of her husband and in-laws.
For Song Sining, how to control the distance from the original family is not easy.
On the other hand, after the initial disillusionment of Song's only professional ideal, she was forced to consider the practical problems of chai rice oil and salt with her newlywed wife, and it is foreseeable that the actual tribulations of this utopian will continue for a long time; Chen Songying insists on Dinkism, and her marriage with her husband survives in name only, and after her career is successful, she should also find a place for her soul in her life...
Relaxed topic expression
Finally, I would also like to talk about the expressive measure of this play.
At present, writing about women's workplaces, fertility concepts and native families in the play will inevitably cause controversy, scale expression is difficult to control, and a little carelessness will fall into the public opinion vortex of "creating male and female antagonism" and "spreading life anxiety". At this point, "Under the Warm Sun" does not fan the wind and ignites, and finds a suitable path.
The first is the light comedy style, using comedic effects to "lower the fire" for the audience. For example, In order to let Song Sining have a second child, Li Junlong did not hesitate to do tricks on safety measures.
Originally, this kind of behavior of not considering the actual situation of the wife, abandoning communication, and vainly trying to cook mature rice made people see their blood pressure soar.
Unexpectedly, Li Junlong lifted a stone and dropped it on his own foot, not only did not succeed, but suffered a needle prick. The integration of this comedy plot not only achieves a dramatic effect, but also soothes the audience.
Second, don't use the character as a tool man.
Take the "second child problem" as an example. Li Junlong did not want a second child for no reason, in addition to the sudden death of his friend made him feel the impermanence of life, the play also used quite a lot of details to show his love for the child deep into the bone marrow.
Song Sining is not bent on having a second child, the characteristics of work can always make her make the most rational choice: after a male colleague added a second child to her home, she often showed a state of mental exhaustion, and finally lost in the competition with young people; another female colleague also had a second child, but the family was changed, in order to shoulder the burden of the family, she began to work part-time madly, and was dismissed because of the damage to the interests of the company.
The cost of living and the cost of education are the most realistic issues that every second-child family must consider. On this issue, "Under the Warm Sun" has both positive cases and negative tragedies. Seeing this, can you still simply reduce it to a "second-child propaganda drama"?
Third, do your own thing, your own home, and solve the problem behind closed doors.
After 8 episodes, the most commendable thing about "Under the Warm Sun" is that it really shapes a big family. Whether it is the "second child problem" or the contradiction between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, weng and daughter-in-law, they are regarded by the family as inevitable stumbles in life, and they need to understand and communicate with each other.
With this common understanding, it is avoided to enlarge the contradictions of life to the contradiction between the enemy and ourselves, which is not tolerant of two tigers, and there is less indiscriminate storms and more warmth. This is the true meaning of "under the warm sun".
However, Li Junlong's career crisis has already laid the groundwork, can the warm life of Song Sining's family continue? How many times does Song have to hit the south wall before he can turn back? Can Chen Songying's Dinkism persist to the end? And continue watching the show.
【Text/Xu Xinqiang】