Everybody’s Fine

一切都好

China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 106 mins.

Director: Zhang Meng 张猛.

Rating: 6/10.

Pleasant but patchy version of the Italian heartwarmer doesn’t generate much deep emotion.

STORY

Beijing, the present day, summer. Widower Guan Zhiguo (Zhang Guolin), a retired geologist who lost his wife a year ago, is expecting his four children for the weekend, but all drop out at the last moment with various excuses. Leaving his hutong house in the hands of old friend and neighbour Ma (Fan Wei), Guan Zhiguo, who’s been writing a family memoir to leave to his children, decides to pay them all surprise visits, on the excuse of checking some facts. He first takes the train to nearby Tianjin to visit his younger son, Guan Hao (Chen He), a photographer; but he’s away. Next day he takes the train south to Hangzhou to visit his elder daughter Guan Qing (Yao Chen), who runs an ad agency, her surgeon husband (Zhang Yi) and their young son (Wang Shaoyong). The atmosphere there is tense, and next day he takes the train to nearby Shanghai to visit his elder son, Guan Quan (Dou Xiao), who has just started a new enterprise to teach English to foreigners. The two quarrel, and Guan Zhiguo next takes the train to Macau to visit his younger daughter, Guan Chu (Ye Yiyun), who turns out to be not the successful ballerina she’d led her father to believe. Disappointed in his children keeping the truth from him, Guan Zhiguo returns to Beijing, where more surprises await him.

REVIEW

A widowed father pays surprise visits to his four children, only to find their lives aren’t exactly what he’s been led to believe, in the pleasant but patchy Everybody’s Fine 一切都好, based on the Italian heartwarmer Stanno tutti bene (1990) directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and starring Marcello Mastroianni. In fact, this version, directed by Zhang Meng 张猛 (The Piano in a Factory 钢的琴, 2010), is much closer to the 2009 US adaptation, written and directed by Kirk Jones and starring Robert De Niro, than to the rambling Italian original. Meng’s version follows Jones’ decision to reduce the number of siblings from five to four, uses the same device of them phoning each other as the father journeys around, and also ends with a family get-together (Xmas in the US re-make, Chinese New Year here). But it also goes several steps further, simplifying the US version’s digressive last act – and with a more positive spin – as well as making it a de facto CNY film by including lots of name cameos.

The result is always watchable, thanks to its cast and smooth mounting, but inevitably just as bitty as the previous two films, simply because of the episodic structure. With the low-key Zhang Guoli 张国立 (Back to 1942 一九四二, 2012) as the aged father, the film isn’t a histrionic showcase for the lead actor in the way that Mastroianni hammed his way through the original and (to a lesser extent) De Niro dominated the Hollywood version. That’s welcome, and Zhang’s easygoing style – seen at its best in early Beijing scenes with fellow comic Fan Wei 范伟 – sets up a very different, often ironic dynamic from that of the other two movies.

In the event, Zhang’s portrayal of the father generally takes a back seat to the rest of the cast as they go about their segments, and only really engages with them in an emotional way in the sections with Dou Xiao 窦骁 [Shawn Dou], as the eldest son who’s never lived up to his hopes, and with Chen He 陈赫 as the youngest, now a barely successful photographer. The latter section, in which father and son quietly muse over old family photos, has a warmth that the other sections lack and leads naturally into the final CNY sequence. But at no time is the film as emotionally powerful as it should be or in a way deserving of its themes – knowing when to let go of your children, learning to respect their chosen lives, and not feeling guilty for being away when they were growing up.

As the elder daughter, who runs an ad agency, Yao Chen 姚晨 cuts a commanding figure as long as her section lasts; but the 36-year-old actress, who hasn’t got leading roles worthy of her talent for some time, is here just one of several extended guest roles. Some five years on from his debut in Under the Hawthorn Tree 山楂树之恋 (2010), and now nearing 30, Mainland-born, Canadian-raised Dou continues to loosen up with each part, but his scenes with Zhang quickly devolve into shouting matches which lack enough backstory for the viewer to engage with. As the younger daughter who’s a failed ballerina, TV actress Ye Yiyun 叶一云, 30, is OK but also has to pack a lot of emotional baggage into brief screen time.

Among the name cameos, director Zhang Yibai 张一白 contributes a drily witty turn as a street musician and actress Wu Junmei 邬君梅 [Vivian Wu] does a lot with a little as a train passenger who bonds with the father. Others, like petite actress Zhou Dongyu 周冬雨 as a taxi passenger with a huge dog or director Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯 as a gangster who gets his just desserts, are more distracting than anything else, highlighting the film’s indecision between being a family drama or a celebrity-stuffed CNY film. (Another 2016 CNY film, The New Year’s Eve of Old Lee 过年好, had the same problem, in a more acute way.)

Working for the first time with experienced d.p. Zhao Fei 赵非 (Raise the Red Lantern 大红灯笼高高挂, 1991; Let the Bullets Fly 让子弹飞, 2010), Zhang Meng creates a look that, surprisingly, doesn’t differentiate strongly between the various locations (Beijing, Tianjin in the north; Hangzhou, Shanghai, Macau in the south). In general, the movie seems at its most comfortable when set in Beijing and Tianjin, lit with a summery northern light. Occasional visual flourishes – like a street mural – recall the more painterly look of Zhang’s Piano, despite having a different d.p.

CREDITS

Presented by Goldxinma TV Culture (CN), Edko (Beijing) Films (CN), Huayi Brothers Starmaker Entertainment Technology (CN), Grand canal Pictures Yangzhou (CN). Produced by Goldxinma TV Culture (CN), Tianjin Turan Media (CN), Enjoyment Film (CN).

Script: Liu Ya, Song Xiao. Photography: Zhao Fei. Editing: Kong Jinlei. Music: A Kun. Art direction: Fu Yingzhang. Costume design: Lv Fengchan. Styling: Zhang Shuping [William Chang]. Sound: Wang Gang, Shan Jian. Action: An Wande. Visual effects: Lao A. Executive direction: Li Zhi, Wang Tianqi.

Cast: Zhang Guoli (Guan Zhiguo), Yao Chen (Guan Qing, elder daughter), Dou Xiao [Shawn Dou] (Guan Quan, elder son), Ye Yiyun (Guan Chu, younger daughter), Chen He (Guan Hao, younger son), Zhang Xinyi (Guan Chu’s girlfriend), Fan Wei (Ma), Wang Jinsong (young bassoonist’s father), Wang Qianyuan (small restaurant’s owner), Yu Yue (small restaurant’s boss lady), Zhang Yi (Li Hong, Guan Qing’s husband), Tian Yu (taxi driver), Zhou Dongyu (woman with dog in taxi), Mike Sui (Mike), Du Jiayi (cigarette seller), Zhang Yibai (erhu player in street), Wu Junmei [Vivian Wu] (Deng Hong, Sichuan woman in train), Jia Zhangke (Macau gangster in restaurant), Tang Chao (singing neighbour), Ren Su (young bassoonist), Zhao Jiaying (young Guan Hao), He He (“shampoo” girl), Wang Shaoyong (Zhihao, Guan Qing’s young son), Zhang Qingyi (young Guan Qing), Zhao Jiahao (young Guan Quan), Guo Yongzhen (Guan Quan’s neighbour), Sun Penghao (Gao Dawei), Luo Dan (Daqiao), Wang Hedan (Xiaoqiao), Hang Xiyu (young Guan Chu), Yu Chao (Macau gangster’s sidekick), Wang Xiujuan (bar singer), Liu Qian (tramp).

Release: China, 1 Jan 2016.