BriarMoone
United States
This review may contain spoilers
A Romantic Debut with Bad Execution
[Written/Watched Jun 03, 2019 for Letterboxd. Expanded 1/20/2021]
(I'm going to try to expand on what I originally thought of this film.) "But, Always" is incredibly melodramatic, and I was content to write this film off as too indulgent in its sappiness. But, for the most part the relationship at the heart of the film is kind've sweet, and genuinely romantic. At some point I was genuinely convinced that this was going to be a slice-of-life romance about two childhood friends.
The hard swerve it takes near the mid-point of the story and its very end soured me on the overall product. When Zhao Yong Yuan (the protagonist) lands in legal trouble, the film goes above and beyond to keep him and An Ran (his sweetheart) separated in the most inorganic way possible. It uses the his best friend as proxy for An Ran's heartbreak, inadvertently suggesting that his best friend was envious of their relationship (but never investigates that angle). It's such a lazy way of creating conflict when his imprisonment (IIRC) would've been enough to test the foundation of their relationship. Think Barry Jenkins' "If Beale Street Could Talk".
The "antagonist" of the film, aside from the inability to properly communicate, is the class differences of the two characters. Yong Yuan is working/lower class, and An Ran is financially secure, wealthy. To some degree, Yong Yuan's lack of financial security (as the son of a "peasant" mother) drives the consequences that keep them separated. Meanwhile, An Ran (whose mother was a doctor) doesn't ever consider it because she isn't in the same bind as he is, and towards the end of the film, she even challenges his preoccupation with money (IIRC, it's been a minute, y'all).
"But, Always" asserts that Yong Yuan solves his problems by becoming wealthy, and its to that end that I hate the sudden indulgence in wealth that the film veers into with him. It's one of the things that bugs me about dramas that put such a huge emphasis on it, and the film doesn't investigate the trauma of his poverty to really justify it.
Yong Yuan becomes someone I dislike, and his actions goes against what I liked about the character to begin with. Yet the film more or less says copious amounts of money is really all this character needed to rise above his hardships and win An Ran back.
Like others have obviously mentioned (at some point), "But, Always" concludes the same way as the 2011 film "Remember Me" ( starring Pierce Brosnan and Robert Pattinson). In the process of watching the film, I initially assumed "Remember Me" was an adaptation of "But, Always", but it's just another genre film on the same wavelength of terrible ideas and not the origin point of one of the worst movies of 2011.
"But, Always" is audacious in its presumption that such a move will endear it to its audience. And maybe for those disconnected from the event and all its baggage, it did and will. For the time being (as far as the US is concerned), romantic stories using 9/11 as a backdrop or stinger for their narratives just don't land. I would argue we're just not at a place where 9/11 has become the "World War II" of historic disasters where using it as plot fodder is readily welcomed.
To that end, I would've thought one movie doing poorly on account of using the 9/11 Attacks as a plot twist would've scared off anyone else, but that's clearly not the case.
(I'm going to try to expand on what I originally thought of this film.) "But, Always" is incredibly melodramatic, and I was content to write this film off as too indulgent in its sappiness. But, for the most part the relationship at the heart of the film is kind've sweet, and genuinely romantic. At some point I was genuinely convinced that this was going to be a slice-of-life romance about two childhood friends.
The hard swerve it takes near the mid-point of the story and its very end soured me on the overall product. When Zhao Yong Yuan (the protagonist) lands in legal trouble, the film goes above and beyond to keep him and An Ran (his sweetheart) separated in the most inorganic way possible. It uses the his best friend as proxy for An Ran's heartbreak, inadvertently suggesting that his best friend was envious of their relationship (but never investigates that angle). It's such a lazy way of creating conflict when his imprisonment (IIRC) would've been enough to test the foundation of their relationship. Think Barry Jenkins' "If Beale Street Could Talk".
The "antagonist" of the film, aside from the inability to properly communicate, is the class differences of the two characters. Yong Yuan is working/lower class, and An Ran is financially secure, wealthy. To some degree, Yong Yuan's lack of financial security (as the son of a "peasant" mother) drives the consequences that keep them separated. Meanwhile, An Ran (whose mother was a doctor) doesn't ever consider it because she isn't in the same bind as he is, and towards the end of the film, she even challenges his preoccupation with money (IIRC, it's been a minute, y'all).
"But, Always" asserts that Yong Yuan solves his problems by becoming wealthy, and its to that end that I hate the sudden indulgence in wealth that the film veers into with him. It's one of the things that bugs me about dramas that put such a huge emphasis on it, and the film doesn't investigate the trauma of his poverty to really justify it.
Yong Yuan becomes someone I dislike, and his actions goes against what I liked about the character to begin with. Yet the film more or less says copious amounts of money is really all this character needed to rise above his hardships and win An Ran back.
Like others have obviously mentioned (at some point), "But, Always" concludes the same way as the 2011 film "Remember Me" ( starring Pierce Brosnan and Robert Pattinson). In the process of watching the film, I initially assumed "Remember Me" was an adaptation of "But, Always", but it's just another genre film on the same wavelength of terrible ideas and not the origin point of one of the worst movies of 2011.
"But, Always" is audacious in its presumption that such a move will endear it to its audience. And maybe for those disconnected from the event and all its baggage, it did and will. For the time being (as far as the US is concerned), romantic stories using 9/11 as a backdrop or stinger for their narratives just don't land. I would argue we're just not at a place where 9/11 has become the "World War II" of historic disasters where using it as plot fodder is readily welcomed.
To that end, I would've thought one movie doing poorly on account of using the 9/11 Attacks as a plot twist would've scared off anyone else, but that's clearly not the case.
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