When Larry Met Mary

陆垚知马俐

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

Director: Wen Zhang 文章.

Rating: 7/10.

Entertaining rom-com about two wannabe partners is sustained more by its performances than its script.

STORY

Shanghai, 1989. Lu Yao (Lv Yuncong) and Ma Li (Liu Chutian) are close friends at Dongfang No. 1 Kindergarten; when he keeps wetting his trousers, she gives him an elastic band to control his bladder. In 2002, Lu Yao (Luo Lianyou), just turned 18, recognises Ma Li (Song Jia) at the same university from a mark behind her ear. They renew their close friendship: she has become very feisty and strong-willed, while he is the same quiet type. Four years later, on the verge of graduation, he still harbours dreams of becoming her boyfriend but she treats him as just a best friend. When she asks him why he’s never tried to date her, he says it’s best to wait until one is 30 and less impulsive. When she says she wants to go overseas to study, but won’t if he asks her not to, he still doesn’t rise to the bait. Later, he sees her off, sadly, at the airport. Six years later, in 2012, the two meet by chance at the funeral of a university teacher; later, Ma Li tells Lu Yao (Bao Bei’er) the whole story of her six years in Paris, its ups and downs, and why she lost touch. She says she missed him. In 2015, Lu Yao is soon to be 31, and his promise to marry Ma Li when he’s 30 is about to expire. But he still dithers, saying he doesn’t want to hold her back from dating other men. In frustration she arranges a blind date with her best female friend, Fang Huihui (Jiao Junyan); but the latter ends up going off with Lu Yao’s best male friend, Zhao Ben (Zhu Yawen), a TV drama writer. When Fang Huihui and Zhao Ben decide on a lightning wedding in Barcelona, Lu Yao and Ma Li tag along.

REVIEW

Mainland actor Wen Zhang 文章, 32, makes an interesting debut behind the camera with When Larry Met Mary 陆垚知马俐, a breezy rom-com whose performances – especially by lead actress Song Jia 宋佳 – compensate for an unfocused screenplay. Xi’an-born Wen, 32, is a likeable actor who began in theatre and TV drama, and segued into movies in the late 2000s, doing some notable work in drama (a sent-down intellectual in A Tale of Two Donkeys 走着瞧, 2008; an autistic son in Ocean Heaven 海洋天堂, 2010) but making his biggest mark in lighter roles (Its Love 白蛇传说, 2011; Love Is Not Blind 失恋33天, 2011; Badges of Fury 不二神探, 2013). As a film-maker, he’s directed the 33-part TV drama Little Daddy 小爸爸 (2013), as well as being credited with “script planning” 剧本策划 on that and TVD Naked Wedding 裸婚时代 (2013), but Larry is his first big-screen outing as a writer-director. Brightly shot by d.p. Shi Luan 石栾, who did sterling work on two films by Huo Jianqi 霍建起 (Falling Flowers 萧红, 2012, also starring Song, and Love in the 1980s 1980年代的爱情, 2015), and lightly scored by An Wei 安巍, it never really touches the heart of its subject – how to cross the invisible line between being best friends and partners – but is sustained by a typically insouciant sense of humour and easy chemistry.

The film’s English title evokes parallels with the 1989 US rom-com When Harry Met Sally…, but apart from telling a long-limbed story of a close friendship between two members of the opposite sex there’s almost nothing else in common between the two films. Where the Hollywood movie was all up-front in its hip 1980s dialogue about sex, platonic relationships and so on, Larry is much less direct, and basically another entry in the popular Mainland genre of university-to-adult-life films. The special angle here is that the best friends just can’t spit out their attraction for each other, with the boy’s diffidence and the girl’s impetuosity always getting in the way.

Apart from a drunken rooftop scene prior to the pair’s graduation, there’s very little dialogue about their relationship, which is played out in a series of generally comic sequences – the best of which is a supermarket scene (against the background of a mop salesman, played by Taiwan comedian Jiu Kong 九孔) in which the pair have a very public row, and a blind-date dinner in which their best friends unexpectedly end up pairing off. The screenplay – by Wen, Feng Yuan 冯媛 (Little Daddy; rom-com South of the Clouds 北回归线, 2014) and Beijing playwright-scripter Ha Zhichao 哈智超 (wannabe noirish drama New York New York 纽约纽约, 2016; gentle rom-com Mr. & Mrs. Single 隐婚男女, 2011) – generally opts for a light, episodic tone in which a mass of film-industry pals pop up in amusing cameos, followed by a 30-minute finale in which the lead couple go off to Barcelona for their best friends’ lightning wedding.

Maybe some background detail got lost in the final cut, but it’s typical of the movie that the viewer isn’t even told what the two leads do for a living. When the romance of the best friends starts to take over the film around the hour mark, what structure there is to the screenplay pretty much goes out of the window in favour of the picturesque foreign location (a current trend in Mainland movies). Also, the momentum of the whole film isn’t helped by the two best friends being more movingly played than the title couple.

As the gutsy Ma Li (the “Mary” of the English title), Song is a revelation. The 36-year-old actress – colloquially known as Xiao Song Jia 小宋佳 to avoid confusion with an older, identically named one – has often been a cool screen presence, but here she throws herself into the loopy comedy (as in the supermarket scene, or the rooftop one) with abandon, as a woman who just keeps on dating the wrong men. The one weakness is casting baby-faced Bao Bei’er 包贝尔 as Lu Yao (“Larry”): he’s fine as the hopeless best friend with goo-goo eyes but isn’t believable as a sexual partner for the ambitious (and later, glamorous) Ma Li. There are times – as when Lu Yao tells a very funny joke in an art gallery – when Wen himself would have been better in the role.

Bao and Song are more affecting in the buddy scenes than the romantic ones, though both fit well into the quartet that develops in the latter half with supporting actors Zhu Yawen 朱亚文 (the serial killer in The Witness 我是证人, 2015) and Jiao Junyan 焦俊艳 (the strange art student in horror Bunshinsaba 3 笔仙3, 2014) as their best friends. In the blind-date dinner, Zhu and Jiao are terrific, kickstarting the film, which was starting to go round in circles, in a more energetic direction.

Among the host of over 20 cameos by industry figures, actor Guo Tao 郭涛 pops up briefly as Lu Yao’s stern father, Wen’s actress wife Ma Yili 马伊琍 ditto as a hospital doctor inspecting a circumcision, and director Du Jiayi 杜家毅 (Kora 转山, 2011) as the boyfriend of one of Lu Yao’s exes. The film’s running time includes an end-title crawl that runs almost 10 minutes. Box office in China was just a respectable RMB192 million.

CREDITS

Presented by C2M Pictures (Shanghai) (CN), Shanghai Junzhu Media (CN), Huayi Brothers Pictures (CN), CMC Holdings Group (CN). Produced by C2M Pictures (Shanghai) (CN), Easy Production (CN), Shanghai Junzhu Media (CN).

Script: Wen Zhang, Feng Yuan, Ha Zhichao. Photography: Shi Luan. Editing supervision: Xu Hongyu [Derek Hui]. Editing: Zhou Xiaolin. Music: An Wei. Art direction: Sun Li. Styling: Wang Yi, Min Rui. Sound: Li Shuo, An Wei. Visual effects: Xu Jian (More Visual Production). Executive direction: Wang Hanli, Kong Lingwei.

Cast: Bao Bei’er (Lu Yao/Larry), Song Jia (Ma Li/Mary), Zhu Yawen (Zhao Ben), Jiao Junyan (Fang Huihui), Zhang Yiming (Li Jun), Lv Yuncong (kindergarten Lu Yao), Liu Chutian (kindergarten Ma Li), Luo Lianyou (young Lu Yao), De Bai, Cao Yin, Wang Chengzu (young Lu Yao’s classmates), He Xun (Natasha, model, Lu Yao’s blind date), Chen Xuming (Han Guoxi, teacher), Cao Shiping (university head), Ru Tian (girl in red dress), Feng Jingwen (air hostess), Kong Lingwei (Ma Haoxuan, young Hui man), Xie Yizhen (Ma Yanyan, young Hui woman), Zhao Wanting (Zhao Ben’s ex-girlfriend), Da Zeng (kindergarten head teacher), Guo Tao (Lu Yao’s father), Gao Beibei (Lu Yao’s mother), Liu Fengyuan (policeman), Li Chen (military instructor), Guo Jingfei (athletics captain), Ma Yili (female doctor), Bao Wenqing (Xiaowei), Du Jiayi (Xiaowei’s boyfriend), Chen He, Chang Yuan (wildlife protestors), Jiao Gang (Peter, art-gallery curator), Wen Zhang (parcel courier), Jiu Kong [Lv Kongwei] (mop salesman), Tao Hui (girl in yellow dress), Bai Yu (Ma Li’s deskmate), Chang Fangyuan (Li Jun’s girlfriend), Wei Shuju (kindergarten teacher), Yue Xiaojun (suitor), Yu Shasha (woman rejecting suitor), Dong Lifan (restaurant boss-lady), Da Bing (big guy).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Asian New Talent Awards), 18 Jun 2016.

Release: China, 15 Jul 2016.