Note: This article contains spoilers

I have to say that this year's Spring Festival schedule is too heavy, so that although it was not too outstanding, the comedy movie "Exchanging Life", which is a "stable and rigid demand" type, turned out to be the last student in the same schedule.

"Exchanging Lives" poster

Judging from the Spring Festival files over the years, "Exchanging Lives" is no matter in terms of genre (fantasy, comedy), cast (Lei Jiayin, Zhang Xiaofei), plot (misplaced farce caused by changing body), theme (home is the most important "no change of money") ") and other aspects, it is completely suitable for the situation and an appropriate choice. In the pre-sale stage, it ranked fourth after the more powerful "Wandering Earth 2", "Manjianghong" and "No Name". Now it has been selected for three consecutive days. The two animations "Bear Infested" and "Deep Sea" caught up, and the Douban score also dropped to 5.7.

As of 18:00 on January 25, the Douban score of "Exchanging Life" is 5.7, which is the lowest Douban score among the seven Spring Festival movies this year

From the point of view, if the opponent is not too strong, "Exchanging Lives" can be regarded as a warm family sketch with no merits and faults. Even the design of many single scenes is very ingenious, and the joke design is ingenious and not vulgar. It also fully explores the charm of the actors themselves in performance and character. The protagonists, especially the heroine, are also very pleasing.

But the whole movie follows the director's fantasy setting all the way down, and I always feel that something is not quite right. The reason is probably caused by the dislocation between the progress of the plot and the final theme.

"Cohabitation in Time and Space" poster

Director Su Lun's debut feature film "Cohabitation Beyond Time and Space" is a very well-completed commercial sketch, which has both fluency and coordination, plus the smart and brisk scheduling of fantasy scenes, which surprised many audiences. Therefore, under the expectation of the previous work, the idea of changing the body, which has been difficult to play with any new ideas, has also become exciting.

The first sentence of a certain version of the trailer raised a question, "Which one do you like, uncle or boy?" When the characters appeared on the stage, it was obvious that the director had made some designs and efforts in setting up the characters. There are also differences in age status. This is also reminiscent of the problems faced by the characters in the previous "Cohabitation in Time and Space" after the interlacing of time. Xiao Jiao loves Lu Ming who lived in 1999, not the successful Lu Shiyi, and Lu Ming chose to save Xiao Jiao's father at the last moment, changing history, and finally lost his love. These designs are somewhat similar to the situations and choices faced by Jin Hao and Xiao Gu in "Exchange Life".

But such a multiple-choice question applied to "Lei Jiayin" and "Zhang Youhao" who had their lives exchanged, but in the end it was just a messy mess for a love that ended without a problem, and "returned for return" to the end. On to a subject that seems to be correct but has not been adequately stated. From the perspective of love to the perspective of family, the creator failed to control the direction of the story creation, which also made the narrative of the story in different directions fall into an embarrassing situation of failure.

Stills of "Exchange Life"

In "Exchanging Lives", the middle-aged unscrupulous lawyer played by Lei Jiayin and the innocent boy who has a crush on a female teacher played by Zhang Youhao played the body swap. The main point of view starts from the side of the young Xiaogu——because of a traffic accident, he exchanged bodies with his blind date partner, the goddess "Zhang Xiaofei", he was kicked out of his originally happy home and accepted that he wanted to live in the body of his "rival in love". After the last 7 days of setting, he started a series of sabotage.

In order for the goddess to "below" his "flesh", he showed the middle-aged man's arrogance, greasiness, and wretchedness to his heart's content, but the inadvertent youthfulness still made the other party fall in love with this "juvenile uncle". Lei Jiayin, the performer of this relationship, fully demonstrates the charm of the "uncle-faced young heart" in the film, with a sly and sincere smile between the silly and silly, very attractive.

Stills of "Exchange Life"

At the same time, "Zhang Xiaofei", as the most directly affected object after the transformation, involved a full clue of her relationship with her mother. Among them, the paragraphs about how older leftover girls deal with the pressure of parents "urging marriage" and the warmth and support between mother and daughter that can't be concealed in the bitterness, all show Su Lun's observation and interpretation of the situation of women as a female director. He also got rid of the mother-in-law or sensational temperament that is common in the usual parent-child relationship while laughing and cursing, very happy and cute.

In the progress of the love line, there are many flashy moments that make people laugh and laugh, and the heart is full of joy. The throbbing in the super large cup of pearl milk tea, the cards on the two-dimensional wine table, and the out-of-key singing still cannot hide the love The light in people's eyes. Su Lun is indeed a director who is good at filming love. An exchange of eyes during the spinning and running can brew sugar.

Stills of "Exchange Life"

Xiao Yueyue, who played a guest role, smelled the "smell of love" in a line in the film. Judging from the progress of the plot in the first half of the film, there are enough suspenseful foreshadowings, and it should be a logical and good-looking romance film. But the film suddenly turned around and came to the other side of the exchange life.

However, "Lei Jiayin", who lived in the body of "Youhao Zhang", was able to re-experience family and friendship, but regretfully became a "tool man"-he witnessed the romance and warmth of "Youhao Zhang"'s parents throwing dog food wildly, and experienced Al The innocence and helplessness of the grandmother with Alzheimer's disease returned to the state of a child, and she also witnessed a well-off family's careful planning to sell half of the neighbor's storefront, but the interaction between the family and him always seemed to be scratchy, just to complete a single scene funny task.

He is like a villain who has to jump out from time to time to emphasize the character's situation and the progress of the lawsuit, and finally succeeded in realizing the destructive behavior that a villain needs to perform, forcing the exchange to fail. But this half of the paragraph seems to be to show the beauty of the family itself and the friendship between family members. The role of "middle-aged Xiaogu" is always an outsider, providing an external perspective, and has never participated in this life to obtain organic interaction. The audience's inability to empathize with the relationship of the whole family makes his motivation to prevent each other from switching back to the body in the end suddenly far-fetched.

Stills of "Exchange Life"

There are too many ineffective setups in the film that distract the viewer and the effectiveness of the narrative. For example, in the family clues in the previous article, the suspense that the family had to find the account password of the grandmother of the short video blogger once made people think that the secret hidden by the grandmother would be more important to the family, and finally found the video presented by the password. At the end of the movie, even the surreal space where the two male protagonists can change their bodies actually exists in the park about the grandma who found the lost Xiaogu when she was a child.

Putting these plots in a fantasy setting should play a more critical role in helping to advance and rationalize the narrative, and in the plot development process of the entire film, looking for passwords and the meaning of this content are absent, and all There is no connection and promotion in the dramatic sense of people's situations. This inevitably makes the grandma's statement at the end seem deliberately sensational - this short video, based on the performance of teacher Wu Yanshu, may not be much less touching because of the lack of the previous 100 minutes of foreshadowing.

From a more complete narrative logic, if it is the setting of two male protagonists, the two people should have gained their own growth through the exchange of life, and they should find a solution and exit direction for their own predicament. This is a A standard commercial genre piece should accomplish the task. If only one of them's exchange journey is the main line, spending so much effort on the love line without end will appear more fragmented.

It is of course undeniable and correct to praise the warmth of the family, but it is obviously broken and smashed. Regardless of the previous logic, the damaged game console will let the male protagonist return to his original life and "recover himself". Evil promotes good, making the heroine who is trapped in the dilemma of older leftover women ignite the spark and the scarred heroine is suddenly free and easy, and the password she has been looking for for a long time is suddenly unlocked. up.

Stills of "Exchange Life"