失踪母亲事件簿

The first and third features from English filmmaker J Blakeson, who most certainly has a partiality for dark and queer characters. TDoAC is a three-person hostage thriller shot on a shoestring, in the mode of William Wyler’s THE COLLECTOR (1965), only more ascetic and messier.

The titular Alice Creed (Arterton) is a rich daddy’s girl, who is kidnapped by two ex-convicts Danny (Compston) and Vic (Marsan), things would go peachy for everyone had it not been the fact that Danny is Alice’s ex-boyfriend, and once this cardinal information is divulged, the whole shebang veers to murkier waters as viewers cannot ascertain who among the three would be the victor, each one seems to an unknown quantity.

The craft on show is adroit, the opening wordless sequences are neat and bracing shot and edited, they smooth the way for audience to gear up for what it is coming - a typical hostage situation set in a single, drab location, where a voluptuous Arterton has to undergo some roughhousing, being gagged, tied, undressed (the usual suspects of S&M fantasy), redressed, and later choked and slapped, but most humiliating of it all, urinating to a bedpan in front of two masked kidnappers.

Well, Blakeson does not actually go to extremes on the path to a torture porn, instead he manipulates various plot twists in a canny way that each time, when a character achieves some sort leverage, the table will be turned in a trice. Also, the fluidity of sexuality plays a major part in the double-cross/counter-double-cross gamesmanship, can sweet nothings soften the gun barrel pointing at your face? Twice out of three you might not luck out.

The long and short of it, TDoAC is an absorbing debut feature mines brilliantly into its meager resource and the outstanding performances from its three players. Can a cowing Eddie Marsan transform himself into a meek lover? You must see for yourself; whereas Martin Compston portrays Danny’s bisexual oscillation with adequacy and Arterton goes for broke in her birthday suit, when all is said and done, countering to what its title alludes to, “disappearance” could be a blessing in disguise.

However, in I CARE A LOT, a Rosamund Pike’s feminist vehicle, Blakeson’s irony and sarcasm goes pitch black. Pike plays a ruthless con woman Marla Grayson, who operates a company legally acquiring the guardianship of elderly people through a duplicitous scheme (often assisted by unscrupulous doctors and inane judges), so their assets are completely at her disposal (though on the face of it, the juridical procedures feel rather facile).

Her gravy train hits a snag when she milks a wrong cow, Jennifer Peterson (a nonplussed then fuming Wiest is always a corker), the apparently perfect candidate, affluent, childless, all alone in the world, actually has a formable friend at court, the Russian mafia boss Roman Lunyov (Dinklage). So when the gloves are off, it is Marla and her girlfriend Fran (González) versus the murderous gangsters, do they have a chance? Or, shall we care?

The answer is yes and no, the ineptitude of Roman’s riffraff is astonishingly shocking (what can you say? they botch not one but two cases of snuffing a defenseless, unconscious woman!), and Marla is depicted as an amoral overachiever, a stony-faced ballbuster, a totally unregenerate bitch (not a scintilla of remorse can be traced on her face), ergo, that really puts audience off from empathizing with her, save for the pungent disgust towards the American Dream she is spoiling for.

If its paint-by-number predator/prey dichotomy sounds trite, its David and Goliath tale seems incredulous and oversimplified, what saves I CARE A LOT from heading to the abyss is Pike. Tricked out in fetching attire and unflappable towards any threats shot at her from the other sex, her Marla is “Amazing Amy” with a vengeance and irrefragably batting for the other team (her affection for Fran is genuine, a viewer might second-guess Marla’s unspecified backstory, how her reprehensible carapace could be the outgrowth of the malefic influence inflicted by the world at large, and Fran’s female warmth becomes her only safe haven). Even in the absence of cordial redeeming feats, it is still riveting to watch Pike’s Marla in action, her fearlessness is both scary and inspiring, you hate her guts but also crave for her guts (or maybe just a part of) ambivalence is here to stay.

At last, Blakeson plumps for poetic justice to put paid to Marla’s unstoppable ascension (can it be construed as a veiled pro-gun testimony? In the United States, the only way for a poor, miserable guy to seek justice from a powerful woman is to use anti-personnel weaponry, how reassuring!), but it feels bathetic, unlike Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013), Blakeson doesn’t know how to dream up a proper coda for a repulsive character, he settles for the safest exit strategy, since everything in I CARE A LOT is Manichaean.

Elsewhere, a debonair Messina lights up the screen as an unethical, soigné lawyer who tries and fails to railroad Marla into dancing to his tunes; Dinklage is always an atypical screen magnet, here his surly temperament is a good match with Pike’s posh sharpness. From TDoAC to I CARE A LOT, the production design goes from drab to hip, Marc Canham’s hypnotic electronic buzz swells and intensifies, but Blakeson’s script and imagination seems to be impeded by a bigger scale and more handsome budget, is it the downside of the money monster?

referential entries: William Wyler’s THE COLLECTOR (1965, 8.0/10); Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013, 8.0/10).

Title: The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Year: 2009

Country: UK

Language: English

Genre: Crime, Thriller

Director/Screenwriter: J Blakeson

Music: Marc Canham

Cinematography: Philipp Blaubach

Editing: Mark Eckersley

Cast:

Gemma Arterton

Martin Compston

Eddie Marsan

Rating: 6.9/10

Title: I Care a Lot

Year: 2020

Country: USA, UK

Language: English

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Thriller

Director/Screenwriter: J Blakeson

Music: Marc Canham

Cinematography: Doug Emmett

Editing: Mark Eckersley

Cast:

Rosamund Pike

Peter Dinklage

Eiza González

Dianne Wiest

Chris Messina

Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Damian Young

Nicholas Logan

Alicia Witt

Macon Blair

Celeste Oliva

Rating: 6.4/10

也算是带给人惊喜的一部小成本电影了

全篇两男一女，只有两个室内场景

总觉得应该是那种剧情很简单，台词很单一，呼吸很粗重的那种羞羞的电影

羞到确实有点羞羞的

但是…...剧情绝不简单

有没有尿点？

鬼刀般的剪辑和配乐，你只会绞尽脑汁思考剧情走向，然后被编剧啪啪打脸

尿点？你敢去撒尿，回来保你一脸懵逼，完全不知道刚才发生了什么

电影爆点不少，对于三观正直的青年来说，有的时候可能会被突然吓的屁滚尿流

比如

这就完了？还早呢！

再比如，赤裸裸的X暗示，估计很多直男得费点纸巾

这部剧真不适合剧透，小成本电影赢就赢在剧本

虽然现在喜欢编剧式观影的大神越来越多了

但对于还没看过先看影评的大多数人来说，一看剧透，本剧毁90%

所以这里直接甩出几个灵魂拷问

如果你看完都能回答

恭喜你，这剧对你来说应该不止价值7分了

灵魂拷问1：爱丽丝异性恋、小V同性恋这个基本无疑，那么你认为丹尼尔真的是双性恋吗？

灵魂拷问2：丹尼尔对爱丽丝或小V是真爱吗？还是一场蓄谋已久的瞒天过海？亦或是如你所见的一步错、步步错，爱比纸薄，命比钱贱？

灵魂拷问3：小V临死为何要救爱丽丝？真的只是人之将死所以变善吗？

灵魂拷问4：丹尼尔明知回去复仇夺金自己就会命不久矣，为何最终还是选择这样的黄粱一梦，而放弃生命？

终极拷问5：导演苦心伏笔的电影名称，为何叫《爱丽丝的失踪》而不叫“绑架爱丽丝”？

以上冷鱼自然有自己的理解，不过一百人眼中有一百个哈姆雷特，如果你看出了自己的理解

那么这部电影，就没有想的那么简单，也同样欢迎留言探讨。

当然，如果看完没法回答，或者你根本不是特别care剧情本身，不要紧

剧情反转反转再反转，基情又激情四射；剪辑给力，bgm完美，果体迷人（男女都是）。以上这些也完全价值7分，作为日常观影爽口小菜，绰绰有余了。

本剧优酷免费观影但略有几分钟果体删减，不过冷鱼自有资源

冷鱼电影VX工号