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"Reverse Life" was released, and the reviews online were quite divided. I took some time to watch it and give my opinion.

Some people say that the movie shows the reality and difficulty of life from the perspective of ordinary people. It is a masterpiece that reflects reality, pays tribute to those who strive, and spreads positive energy.

The movie definitely wants to spread positive energy. Most of the street scenes in the whole movie are gray-blue tones with high color temperature, suggesting a dark and gloomy style, which just sets off the bright yellow uniforms of the riders, making people feel warm, excited and happy.

This fits in with the theme of the film: taking a beating in life and still staying positive.

But some people also say that this is a movie made by some rich people for the poor to watch, and it is hypocritical and pretentious.Regardless of whether this statement is right or wrong, I think it can be explained and understood.

The film is technically excellent, with no major problems with the photography, rhythm, and structure, but the plot is too pieced together, so it lacks soul, and the characters are stiff.

The movie's male protagonist Gao Zhilei had been working for the company for 11 years and received 700,000 yuan in layoff compensation. Based on his salary, it should be 60,000 yuan a month, plus year-end bonuses, etc., which makes him about 700,000 to 1 million yuan a year.

Why is this income situation completely unable to cope with the crisis? This is because the movie adds all the sufferings that are circulated on the Internet to Gao Zhilei.

Gao Zhilei in the movie fits the classic image. The so-called "three pieces of death" of the new middle class are popular on the Internet now: high mortgage, spouse not working, and children attending international schools. Gao Zhilei precisely meets these three points.

In order to emphasize this point, the movie also uses Gao Zhilei's father to shout: It was you who told your wife not to go to work.

In addition, the movie also adds a plot in which P2P loses almost all of his savings and his father becomes ill.

This initial setting caters to the image circulated on the Internet and has a strong internet feel, but it causes the movie to cater to the concept, while the characters become stereotyped and rigid, lacking the reality of life itself, and becoming a sad drama without soul.

From my perspective as a news commentator, to some extent, this movie is a film version of news commentary - because it embodies many news points. This is not surprising, when several screenwriters gather stories and hold brainstorming sessions, past news points will become something they are reluctant to abandon - these news points can resonate and bring traffic.

However, when a movie is like a news commentary, it lacks the depth and insights of current affairs commentary, and also loses the moving aspects of conflict, tension, humanity and contradiction brought about by the details of life.

Xu Zheng's acting skills are not a problem, he can play any role well and it won't distract people from the drama. But the plot of the movie is distracting, so there is a popular saying: "Rich people spend time playing poor people to make more money, but poor people spend money to buy tickets to watch rich people play themselves."

In fact, the poor people in almost every movie are made and played by rich people. The reason why "Reverse Life" received this evaluation is because the movie lacks the reality of life and makes people feel out of the play.

Someone on Douban said: Layoffs are not like this, food delivery is not like this, human nature is not like this, family conflicts are not like this, midlife crisis is not like this, life is not like this. Don't deliberately film a person's life as so innocent and so victimized, this is consuming suffering and creating anxiety.

First of all, a senior programmer, a technical leader of a company, is not so easily laid off, let alone deliberately humiliated.

Laymen generally believe that programmers are code farmers. Since it is farming, it is a physical job and it is a job for the young, relying on overtime and time.

But in fact, as a company's technical leader, familiarity with the company's existing business technology, leadership, interpersonal relationships, industry relationships, and even the landmines buried in the code all make it difficult for a technical leader to be laid off easily.

At least, there will be no humiliating layoffs.

Later, Gao Zhilei went to another company for an interview, but due to a mistake made by the HR, he misread his birth year, misreading 1978 as 1998. But even so, if the interviewer refused, he would be polite and courteous, and would not make insulting comments directly on his age.

Even if you are laid off, it is not too difficult for an experienced programmer to find a temporary job. You can always find outsourcing or doing some odd jobs.

His economic and social status will not decline so quickly, and his wife will not fall directly into the nail industry.This is not in line with social reality, nor is it consistent with the efforts of middle-class families to maintain their family status.

In fact, in non-physical industries that require experience and accumulation, age is a burden, not because of the decline in physical strength, but more because of the high salary and the difficulty in managing experienced and well-connected people. This makes companies worry about instability even if you reduce your salary to find a job.

Therefore, for people like Gao Zhilei, it is difficult to find a stable job, but it is not too difficult to earn temporary and scattered income.

Moreover, as the overall economic situation changes, it will be difficult for people like Gao Zhilei to return to their original positions and salaries after being laid off. So, when they realize this, they will actually become easier to manage and less unstable.

Therefore, unemployment like Gao Zhilei's is essentially still frictional unemployment, which is caused by changes in the labor market due to changes in the economic situation and the time lag between labor market cognition.

Once the industry recognizes the new human resource characteristics - to put it more bluntly, when company people understand that there is a large number of experienced people in the market who are willing to take a pay cut to find a job, and these people also understand this, stability can be achieved.

At this point, frictional unemployment disappears.

The film was shot in this way to make concrete the jokes circulating in society about the unemployed middle-aged and middle-class people who cannot find jobs because of their age.But in fact, there is no need to pile up suffering. A real middle-aged middle-class life, even if it is slowly sliding down, is also full of real pain.

For example, unemployment can lead to family financial difficulties, conflicts between husband and wife, self-doubt, and a decline in the status of a husband and father in the family. These are often the more real difficulties faced by a middle-class man.

I've recently been reading a famous book about the Great Depression in the United States in 1929, Children of the Depression. Through sociological research methods, the book reveals that when middle-class families face economic crises such as unemployment, the psychological costs are more likely to come from the decline in prestige and social status; family conflicts caused by the decline in fathers' status; and the decline in control over their children.

The movie ignores these real pains, but does not hit the pain points directly - even the fact that the house was not kept in the end was downplayed in the movie.

So, in the end, the movie became a patchwork of jokes about middle-aged unemployment and social news.

Another line of the movie is the riders. The movie has a relatively in-depth study of the riders' profession, allowing the audience to deeply understand the unknown side of the riders' profession. However, the movie's understanding of the riders is still stereotyped.

This is not surprising, because in fact, Chinese society's perception of riders is also stereotyped and ambivalent.

On the one hand, Chinese public opinion believes that riders are exploited and squeezed, specifically "trapped in algorithms", but at the same time, Chinese society as consumers is stingy with its tolerance. The movie shows these details. The scene of sending flowers is touching because of its reality. The movie also opens up space for reconciliation and understanding between consumers and riders.

But the movie is still stuck in many jokes from the past. For example, the riders have to smile, which is a very important point in the movie. Two or three plots are playing up this joke. This joke originated from the article "Trapped in the System". This article created a tragic image of Chinese riders, but consciously ignored many real problems.

The facial recognition of riders is not for smiles, but for safety. Online car-hailing drivers have to undergo facial recognition frequently to ensure that they are not impersonated. For something like food delivery that involves the safety of countless people, real names must be used. Otherwise, the platform will completely lose control over who is used, and the direct consequence is a public risk of food safety.

In terms of the social positioning of riders on a larger level, the film caters to the stereotypes of Chinese society. The mainstream of Chinese public opinion is people with a certain level of education, who can speak out and influence public opinion. The only group they can see in their daily urban life that can project the exploited and lower-class image they have been educated about is the riders.

What's more, the riders' uniform reinforces this image.

However, what is the real social position of riders? Not the bottom class, but the middle class. If a couple are both riders, the family income is 20,000 yuan per month, and the annual income is 240,000 yuan. This is the standard Chinese middle class.

Moreover, many of the characteristics of the riders' work are also experienced by office white-collar workers. This is inevitable in the workplace. KPI, attendance, last-place elimination, striver plan, 3 people doing 5 people's work and getting 4 people's salary, human resources scoring, involution among colleagues, which one of these white-collar workers don't feel?

In fact, the social security issue that is used to prove the low social status of riders is not because the riders have a low status, but rather because the riders’ freedom gives them choices.

According to economic principles, the social security that is not paid is actually given to the riders as labor remuneration. If they can really choose a social security plan, many white-collar workers are willing to pay according to the standards of their hometowns.

Recently, a white-collar friend of mine complained that he only received 4,500 yuan out of a salary of 11,000 yuan. For example, in some county towns, riders are the buyers of the most high-end commercial housing and the main consumers of local education and training.

It is the difference between stereotypes and real economic status that makes the suffering of the riders in the movie have to be compounded by the disaster of leukemia. Otherwise, how can a family with a monthly income of 20,000 yuan become miserable?

But it is precisely this practice of piling up disasters that turns the film into an unrealistic tragedy, which has led to the evaluation that it exploits suffering and makes people feel that "rich people play poor people."

Of course, this is my opinion as a news commentator who has been paying attention to Chinese social issues for a long time. For ordinary people, the information given by the movie caters to and supplements their usual impressions, so it is definitely welcome.

But if a realistic film adds another veil to reality, it is no longer realism.

Xu Zheng's previous film, "Dying to Survive," was based on a real case and ultimately led to changes in the law. The vitality of realistic films lies in the reality of life.

By making stereotypes concrete, it is impossible to have the conflicts, contradictions and struggles hidden in the details of life.

Realistic films have become a patchwork of social news, catering to stereotypes and cheap sensationalism, and have lost realism itself.

No.5923 Original first article | Author Liu Yuanju

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