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Love is a topic that humans cannot avoid.

The variety of forms, rich emotions and full tension are also the themes that cannot be avoided in film and television works.

It is common, but also difficult to master. It has thousands of appearances and various flavors. In recent years, there are indeed very few film and television works that can pass the passing line.

The most anticipated movie in theaters recently is "Negatives Make Positives", which will be released on Valentine's Day.

After its release, the film received a lot of positive reviews online, with some saying it was the best love movie in recent years.

But it seems that "Negatives Make Positives" is still a little short of passing the test, and that is because it is too deliberate in its pandering.

But that’s a story for later. Today, let’s discuss whether this movie, which everyone has been looking forward to, is a “positive” or “negative” success.

Let’s talk about the good parts of this movie first. Just looking at the cast, it’s hard not to be excited about it.

Starring Zhu Yilong, Qiu Tian, ​​Jiang Qiming, and Zhu Zhu, with guest appearances by Wang Yitong, Chen Minghao, and Mao Tao from Wu Tiao Ren.

Qiu Tian contributed very smart acting skills in this movie. His eyes are cunning like a liar, but he still retains some innocence. He understands the ways of the world and is quirky, which fits the character setting of the heroine who is unpredictable and always talks nonsense.

The movie's pictures really capture the atmosphere, and you won't find any major problems even if you take a screenshot.

After talking about this superficial "good-looking" thing, let's talk about the characters and story background settings of this movie.

Love happens to a couple who share a house in a big city. Huang Zhenkai, played by Zhu Yilong, is a typical cowherd with no life but work, and he is a otaku most of the time.

Faced with the dull life day after day, he was also very dull until he met the heroine Li Xiaole, played by Qiu Tian.

Li Xiaole's dissatisfaction with life is clearly written on her face. She struggles very hard and always changes her appearance and name. She can be anyone, but she is not unwilling to be Li Xiaole.

He is unchanging, while she is free and changeable. These two people became roommates. As for how they got together, there was no particularly dramatic catalyst.

The two of them were watching TV together in the middle of the night, the atmosphere was right, and a relationship developed.

The relationship is very contemporary. In the past, it was friends who became close friends, but in Shanghai, it was situationship.

Some very pleasing elements were also included in the editing of the trailer.

For example, the three rules mentioned in the film:

“1. Never spend the night in the same room;”

“2. Never talk about or define the relationship;”

“3. Always turn off the lights.”

These three rules and the fast-paced atmosphere of debauchery among urban men and women can basically touch the pain points of many people and drive them into the cinema.

The story itself fits the mood of the time about sub-healthy urban love, and on top of that the director did something fancy and created a play-within-a-play structure.

The male protagonist has always believed that he is living in a script set by aliens, and "in fact" it is indeed the case.

So in addition to the protagonist's perspective, the movie also has an alien's perspective.

Such a multi-layered narrative structure makes the whole movie more three-dimensional.

This not only breaks the film's medium form, allowing the audience to observe this relationship, it also serves as a mirror projection.

Regardless of whether you are reading a story or looking in the mirror, with this structure, the movie "Negatives Make Positive" has a strong sense of immersion and viewing pleasure.

In addition, the film "Negatives Make Positives"'s portrayal of female subjectivity, although rather stereotyped, is still relatively rare.

The bodies and lives of the women in the film are controlled by themselves.

One scene that left a deep impression on me was when the heroine, on her 18th birthday, decided through an interview with whom she would have her "coming of age ceremony".

The inn's proprietress did not treat her behavior in a harsh manner. Instead, she showed gentle tolerance as an adult woman who had experienced the world.

At this point someone might say, it looked pretty good, so why did it collapse?

Logically, the movie should have entered a new emotional depth when the heroine disappeared, but in fact it completely let go from that moment on.

If the first half of the film is realistic, the second half is too disjointed and magical.

As a popular art form with the most obvious realistic characteristics, film cannot avoid the connection with reality.

Love is universal, but it is difficult to make a good love movie.

For a love movie to tell a touching story, the most sufficient and necessary condition is to consider whether the content conforms to the logic of reality.

Although the hero was described as a complete loser in the first half of the movie, the screenwriter seemed to have forgotten about it after the hero "broke up".

After the breakup, the male protagonist began to find ways to find himself, and the way he chose was to quit his job and travel around the world.

Putting aside the issue of savings, it is actually very difficult to get a visa to a developed country without a job.

Of course, this is just a small point. The reason why the heroine disappeared is actually more outrageous. It was mainly because her father was seriously ill, and she borrowed money from someone and ran away after not paying it back. Later, she was hit by a car on the way to the hospital to accompany her father.

It was outrageous, but the alien said that this was the heroine's script. At that moment, the hero went crazy and started to find ways to change the script against the will of heaven.

The way to change it is to rush into the aliens' office and start a desperate fight with them, which will not only change the heroine's life but also his.

In the process, he needs to fight a desperate battle with powerful aliens. Faced with aliens who are stronger than him, the male protagonist comes up with a plan to change his "script", change his skin and character, and finally win the game and "change his life".

What happens next is that after going around in circles, the male protagonist opened a bar on the beach and finally waited for the female protagonist.

Some friends who have seen the film may say that the setting of this film does not say that it has to be consistent with reality. Isn’t the male protagonist living in an alien script?

Not to mention that the alien's perspective only plays a structural auxiliary role, it is very important that the abstract style does not mean that the expression must also be abstract.

I think the poor performance of the second half of the movie is largely due to the alien setting, rather than its poor imitation of Wong Kar-wai.

In fact, if we deconstruct this movie, each of its techniques and elements are very impressive when taken individually, and the shadows of various masters can be seen.

For example, "A Brief History of the Universe", "Kung Fu", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "The Story of the Editorial Department", and "Eternal Love of Dreams" not only pay tribute to Wong Kar-wai but also to Chaplin.

Its production team is very impressive at a glance, with Ning Hao as producer, Feng Yuchao as photographer, and Kong Dashan as editor.

It focuses on a future-oriented nostalgia, absurd and uninhibited background, and after adding the setting of the alien universe, it begins to mix together classic and fashionable elements, and then expresses them with abstract romanticism.

This is where the problem arises. There are too many stitching elements, coupled with some just-right "golden sentences":

"Once people get to know each other, they will hate each other. Now I have begun to hate you."

“How can one live alone and yet not feel lonely?”

"Negatives Make Positives" generates a strange sense of the internet.

When watching it, I can't help but sigh, "The wind of missing you still blows to the cinema."

Of course, this technique of piling up a large number of elements does fit the most "popular" film style that combines abstraction and madness, but it is worth questioning whether you will get tired of it after watching it too much.

After all, there is nothing wrong with using thirteen spices as a seasoning. Whether it works well or not depends on the amount used and the ingredients themselves. It is acceptable if the ingredients are mediocre, but it would be really choking if people just eat the seasoning.

As for whether the "Thirteen Spices" in this movie is good or bad, all we can say is that it's all the fault of aliens.

The subject matter of "Negatives Make a Positive" is very good. It hits the mark of the times among urban men and women. If it had just told the story of contemporary situationship well, both the dramatic tension and the emotional tension would have been sufficient.

If you don't believe it, you can take a look at the discussion posts about this kind of relationship on the Internet and you will find that basically every post is filled with urban frustrated men and resentful women. From a distance, it seems like love problems, but from a close look, it projects all kinds of problems.

There is nothing wrong with paying tribute to Wong Kar-wai, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to be the contemporary Wong Kar-wai. The problem is that it has to conform to reality and the times.

It is believed that the winning formula of a romance film is not fancy techniques, but delicate capture and simple expression, using the language of the lens and the creation of atmosphere to mobilize people's subtle perceptions and ultimately achieve a moving result.

Perhaps the director's original intention was to use this movie to persuade everyone to believe in love, but in the end it became a self-talking dream.

Some people say this is a love fairy tale for adults.

But you and I both know that imagination cannot cure the love disease in the city.

Design/Visual: Lvv