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©️Mirror Entertainment

Text丨Gu Zhenguan

Recently, the movie "Reverse Life" was rated on Douban, and with a score of 6.9, it is worthy of watching, but the complex public opinion situation online has cast a cloud over the film.

Among the polarized word of mouth, there are many viewers who recognize the film's realistic expression, but there are also comments such as "singing praises to suffering", "watching actors play ordinary people", and "avoiding industry conflicts". This has a very direct impact on the box office of "Reverse Life". Before the screening, the industry generally expected the film to break 1 billion at the box office, but now Maoyan's final box office forecast has fallen to 500 million.

"Singing the praises of suffering" and "singing the praises of the people and courage who face suffering" are two completely different things. What the protagonist Gao Zhilei of "Reverse Life" conveys to the audience is "each of us has worked hard, and we have worked hard enough." The whole film is telling us "If suffering cannot be avoided, how should we deal with it?"

Although there are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand audiences, for film art, it cannot bear too much beyond the content itself. Caring for reality is the mission of realistic themes, and as for whether it can change reality, we can only do our best.

Universal values ​​≠ chicken soup

Judging from the trailer before its official release, "Reverse Life" has a strong inspirational and inspirational flavor, so we even lowered our expectations moderately before watching the movie, and then we had a movie-watching experience that exceeded our expectations.

As a professional film, although "Reverse Life" has made a certain degree of artistic processing of reality, it has neither over-glorified nor over-consumed the takeout industry. It relatively clearly shows the audience all aspects of the takeout industry, such as the ecological operating system of the entire industry, and the living individuals blurred by the label of "deliverymen".

Among the countless people portrayed in "Reverse Life", Yang Dashan, a young delivery man who works hard to marry Lu Meili, Lao Mi who "even regards car accidents as good fortune" in order to treat his child's leukemia, and Dahei who pays off the debt of a college student who had to have his limbs amputated because of taking a transferred order, are all full of flesh and blood.

For them, the delivery job is not only about survival, but also about the pursuit of a better life. The same is true for the protagonist Gao Zhilei.

When he was still an urban elite, Gao Zhilei was unfriendly to deliverymen, but when he became a deliveryman himself, he could not take off "Kong Yiji's long gown". We often say that there is no distinction between high and low jobs, but in the eyes of the world, the distinction between high and low occupations does exist.

Therefore, Gao Zhilei was always ashamed in the early stage. His shame came from his rapid decline and the predicament of "going from an urban elite to a food deliveryman" in the eyes of the world. In the later stage, Gao Zhilei walked out of the siege built by the secular world, starting from his recognition of the value of the food delivery job and the recognition that "he had worked hard enough".

However, "Reverse Life" does not convey the message of "hard work will lead to success". Gao Zhilei, who won the title of "Single King", still sold his house with a monthly mortgage payment of over 10,000 yuan, because he and the audience knew that his becoming the "Single King" was based on the withdrawal of his strong colleagues or unexpected events.

Winning once is luck, but not being able to win every time is reality. In the end, Gao Zhilei still has to answer the unavoidable questions of "how to survive sustainably" and "how to live with dignity".

As a film about the midlife crisis, "Reverse Life" focuses not only on how the protagonist Gao Zhilei gets out of the darkest moment of his life, but also how the entire family behind him overcomes adversity.

Faced with Gao Zhilei's middle-aged unemployment, his wife Xiaoni was angry, but she was angry because she was deprived of the right to know. In Xiaoni's view, she was fully capable of sharing the pressure with Gao Zhilei, and she later proved her determination with her actions.

Previously, after Bi Zhifei remade "Spring in a Small Town", producer Chen Zhixi commented: "In that era, each of us was sacrificing and considering each other, not letting each other carry emotional baggage. Because I love you, I need you to be able to move forward easily. But what do you call it now? Why did you lie to me? We are truly in love. If you have anything, as a woman, I am willing to bear and share it with you."

This is also the core expression of "Retrograde Life" on the relationship between husband and wife. It can be said that in the presentation of contemporary husband and wife relationships, "Retrograde Life" is one of the few big-screen works in the past one or two years that fits the values ​​of contemporary people.

The presentation of the father-son relationship in "Reverse Life" is also remarkable. "Working hard all your life just for your children and grandchildren to become outstanding people" is the educational goal of a generation, and Gao Zhilei's father is the same. At first, he could not bear and accept Gao Zhilei's unemployment, and did not want to be a burden to Gao Zhilei, but when he saw his son's tenacious side in supporting the big family in adversity, he finally reconciled with his son and himself.

From many aspects, "Reverse Life" is a work that conforms to Chinese universal values. Its core expression has nothing to do with "glorifying suffering". The question answered throughout the film is "how do we face suffering?"

Focus on the middle class ≠ elite gaze

Similarly, the evaluation of "Elite Gaze" on "Reverse Life" is not objective.

The script structure and dramatic conflict setting of "Reverse Life" are relatively classic, that is, how Gao Zhilei, who is labeled as an urban elite and middle-class, and ordinary people at the bottom such as Lao Kou and Dahei gradually go from confrontation to mutual understanding and mutual support. First of all, this has determined that the film is to eliminate the top-down gaze rather than strengthen it. Secondly, there is nothing wrong with the middle class as the protagonist.

For those who are about to enter the next stage of life, watching "Reverse Life" will more or less generate new thoughts on issues such as "whether to compete for school district housing" and "whether to compete for education investment."

In the film, Gao Zhilei's rapid fall and "Kong Yiji's long gown that cannot be taken off" all demonstrate the fragility of the middle class. He seems bright and respectable, but he cannot withstand the turbulence of the storm. A loss of job and a serious illness can almost bring his family to a standstill. Therefore, the midlife crisis brought by unemployment has also become a new opportunity for him to passively think about life.

At present, using movies to explore the survival dilemma of the middle class is undoubtedly a worthy attempt. In the past one or two years, "consumption downgrade", "brands can no longer make money", and "the three pieces of the middle class bankruptcy set" have been frequently discussed. The so-called three pieces of the middle class bankruptcy set are high mortgages, full-time wives, and children going to international schools. Gao Zhilei has not escaped any of these. He is extremely typical and extremely common.

If Gao Zhilei did everything he could to preserve the symbol of his middle-class identity, the story told in "Reverse Life" would be a castle in the air, but he eventually sold his house with a high monthly mortgage payment, which also made the film grounded. The audience can interpret it as "a compromise with reality" or "actively choosing another life." In any case, Gao Zhilei found a new way out.

It can be said that in terms of deconstructing the middle class, "Life Against the Current" is a logically self-consistent film, but with "the fall of the middle class" as one of the narrative focuses, it has indeed affected the general audience's sense of substitution and empathy for the film.

In addition, at the end of the film, Gao Zhilei's Lulutong was appreciated by the senior management of the food delivery company, which left an open ending for the story. As an IT elite, Gao Zhilei's life may usher in new opportunities. Of course, there is another possibility that Gao Zhilei's technological achievements will not benefit any food delivery workers, including him.

The open ending is bound to leave room for multiple interpretations. In the eyes of some people, this ending implies that Gao Zhilei's life will finally turn around, making "Reverse Life" a complete "transformation". From a commercial and emotional value perspective, this open ending has indeed planted a mine in the market.

In "Dying to Survive", the protagonist Cheng Yong is not a small person in the absolute sense, but in the middle and late stages, he always stands with the small people, and wins the value recognition of the general audience group with his "sacrifice for the greater good". In contrast, the open ending of "Reverse Life" has formed a subtle wall of estrangement between Gao Zhilei and some viewers.

In the past one or two years, the film market has entered an era of high emotional value. The positive correlation coefficient between whether a film can become a hit and the box office volume of the film type is declining. Instead, the determining factor is the degree to which the film satisfies the emotional value of the general movie-watching group.

This was also the core reason for the success of last year's summer movie season, including the women's issues behind "Gone Girl", the "cultural confidence" behind "30,000 Miles of Chang'an", and the "national anti-fraud" behind "All or Nothing". However, most of the movies in this summer's movie season were not successful in this regard, and "Reverse Life" is naturally included.

The industry also has a clear sense of this. Producer Tan Fei recently posted on Weibo that "cinemas are places of emotion rather than aesthetics, and the summer season has once again proved this. But we still have to firmly applaud those good movies. Market results are one thing, and artistic quality is another. An industry without the courage to innovate and take risks has no future. It is more respectable to applaud good films than to applaud good box office."

Now it seems unlikely that "Reverse Life" will become a big hit, but as Tan Fei said, the market results are another matter. Overall, "Reverse Life" is still a good film with more flaws than merits, and it also reflects reality to a certain extent.

Stopping at the right time does not mean glossing over the situation

In the controversy surrounding "Reverse Life", "avoiding industry conflicts" and "whitewashing peace" were repeatedly mentioned. In the eyes of some viewers, the film's overall critical thinking is relatively weak, and it fails to present the core conflicts and deep dilemmas of the Internet and food delivery industries in a relatively in-depth manner. But is this really the case?

Throughout the film, it is not difficult to find that the exploitation of individual subjectivity by algorithms in the Internet era is an expression throughout the film. As an IT elite in a large company, Gao Zhilei was optimized by the algorithm he wrote, which is extremely ironic in itself.

In a report a few years ago, an employee who used to work for a large Internet company expressed his feelings: "We all have a strong sense of crisis. We can't write code like this forever. There will be younger people who can learn new technologies faster and are more willing to work overtime."

For the huge machine of a large company, most people are just screws that make up the machine. This is the deep dilemma that people working in the Internet industry generally face, and it is also a true portrayal of Gao Zhilei. The same is true for the food delivery industry, which is also part of the Internet industry. In "Reverse Life", the food delivery drivers are trapped in the algorithm and their value is also determined by the algorithm.

Gao Zhilei successfully became the "order king" by following the algorithm mechanism. In theory, the improvement in efficiency will bring positive feedback, but the film reveals the complexity behind the incident through the mouths of the employees at the food delivery station: under the ladder system of distribution levels, the extreme efficiency of an individual will instead become proof of the algorithm's judgment of "industry general efficiency." This is not good news for most food delivery practitioners, because it means that the more they are involved, the greater the pressure will be.

In addition to the algorithm, the platform prompts "Your order has timed out" that frequently appear in the film, and the fact that Gao Zhilei has to undergo smile verification again and again even after fainting on the side of the road, otherwise he will be deducted money, all show the contradictions in the food delivery industry.

Apart from the conflicts between deliverymen and platforms, "Reverse Life" also presents the conflicts between deliverymen and consumers and some social entities in a relatively comprehensive manner, such as the difficulties of some consumers and some shopping malls not allowing deliverymen to enter through the main entrance. The presentation of these objective conflicts will more or less make the outside world respect and understand the profession of deliverymen.

In the Douban comments section, a user who works in food delivery said: "To say that filming the lower class is to consume suffering, I want to say that if I hadn't filmed it, who would have known that there are so many rules and so many accidents in delivering food. Delivering food is not easier than typing on a keyboard. It's a race against time, dealing with people, dealing with cars, every aspect cannot be wrong, otherwise if one link goes wrong, everything will collapse like the electric car at the beginning of the movie."

As the film market enters an era of high emotional value, the public may need realistic films to "make a clear statement" or "clearly present a sharp confrontation" more than ever before. This is understandable, but when it comes to criticizing reality and changing reality, all movies can do is do their best, which is also the attitude of "Retrograde Life".

Last year, "The Annual Meeting Can't Stop" became one of the biggest dark horses in the market, which was closely related to the film's presentation of an idealistic and direct resistance of working people. The critical nature of "Retrograde Life" is more hidden in the details and hidden lines.

The criticism of reality in "Reverse Life" may be limited to a certain point, but the criticism is not absent, let alone whitewashing peace. It is limited to a certain point, leaving room for thinking. As for how far the audience can think, it is up to each person to see.

Putting too much additional expectations on realistic films, even when these expectations to some extent exceed the scope of what the film can carry, is unfair to the work itself. The public opinion controversy caused by this will also affect the outside world's objective judgment of the film. For example, in the relevant controversy of "Reverse Life", there were remarks such as "Xu Zheng should not play the role of a small person at the bottom of society."

In the past few years, the outside world has repeatedly called on the film and television industry to have more good works focusing on the grassroots, the disadvantaged groups, and ordinary professions. However, when such works appear, public opinion should also put aside emotional orientation and be tolerant accordingly. It doesn't matter if a realistic film does not become a hit, but if realism gradually becomes a laborious and unpopular theme, it is not a good thing for the film market and the audience.

Original by Mirror Entertainment (ID: jingxiangyuler)

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