If You Are Happy

学区房72小时

China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 97 mins.

Director: Chen Xiaoming 陈晓鸣.

Rating: 7/10.

Black comedy centred on a university teacher caught up in a real-estate tangle boasts a fine script and cast.

STORY

Shanghai, a couple of years ago. On a Friday afternoon, while still teaching a class, assistant university professor Fu Zhong (Guan Xuan) gets an urgent call from Mao Dou (Qian Yi), an estate agent whom he’s known since childhood. Leaving his class in the hands of Yuan Hang (Tu Hua), one of the students, Fu Zhong meets Mao Dou, who takes him to a flat that is available near the prestigious Huaming Primary School, in which Fu Zhong wants to enrol his daughter Chengcheng (Qiqi) next year. He and Mao Dou both grew up in the area but are no longer registered as living there. The 30m² top-floor flat is in poor condition but Fu Zhong, desperate to buy a property in the area in order to qualify Chengcheng for the primary school, agrees to the RMB3.6 million asking price and RMB100,000 deposit. He has RMB3 million in the bank and Mao Dou agrees to give him a week to find the rest. He picks up Chengcheng from kindergarten, where his wife, Liu Jiayuan (Fu Miao), has been accidentally stabbed in the hand by an excitable boy student, Taotao (Qian Yincheng). En route home he brings in an estate agent, Xiaoluo (Chen Guo), to put their 70m² flat on the market; she reckons it’s worth RMB2.5 million and Fu Zhong says he wants a cash deposit of RMB600,000. Liu Jiayuan is not sure Fu Zhong is doing the right thing but doesn’t make a fuss as she is still suffering from clinical depression. Fu Zhong then goes back to the college, supposedly to give pupils extra tuition for the end-of-term exam on Monday but actually to spend time with his lover, who is Yuan Hang. Xiaoluo calls to say she already has viewers for his flat, so Fu Zhong rushes home. Liu Jiayuan asks him not to sell the flat, as she can get the money he needs from her father. But then their maid, Auntie Niu (Xu Xing), says her son, Zhang Xiaobao (Liu Xiaodi), who’s been desperately looking for a flat for almost a year, will buy it if he drops the price to RMB2 million; the RMB600,000 deposit won’t be a problem. Fu Zhong agrees and they go to visit her son, who’s distraught because his girlfriend is leaving him; he has RMB600,000 in cash under his bed but is in no condition to do a deal at the moment. On Saturday morning, Yuan Hang’s high-flying mother (Rong Rong), who wants her daughter to get good marks and go overseas to study, visits Fu Zhong and invites him to a lunch on Sunday, in appreciation of all the time he’s spent giving Yuan Hang extra tuition. In college, Fu Zhong is told by a professor, Jia (Teng Xuekun), that an anonymous letter has claimed that a teacher is fixing the exam marks in exchange for bribes. That evening, Auntie Niu and her son come round, pay the deposit and sign a contract. Then, on Sunday morning, Fu Zhong is told by Mao Dou that the seller has been offered RMB4 million for the flat in Huaming; she will give Fu Zhong until Monday to match the amount. Even though a contract with the seller has been signed, and the deposit paid, Mao Dou tells Fu Zhong it wouldn’t be worth the time and money to sue her in court. Then, back home, Yuan Hang’s mother suddenly turns up, offers to buy Fu Zhong’s flat for RMB2.5 million, and says she has the RMB600,000 cash deposit on her.

REVIEW

A father goes to the wall (and beyond) to qualify his daughter for a place in a good primary school in If You Are Happy 学区房72小时, a notable first feature by Chen Xiaoming 陈晓鸣, a Shanghai writer-director in his mid-40s who initially graduated from Shanghai Theatre Academy and then worked for a spell in TV. A timely black comedy on the amount that Chinese parents are prepared to spend on their (single) child’s education – of which the obsession with so-called xuequfang 学区房 (flats in areas with good schools) is a major part – it’s both beautifully cast and cleverly written, with an almost docu-drama look and feel. Local box office was expectedly tiny, at just over RMB1 million.

As well as spending vast sums on additional tuition for their child, the Mainland’s urban middle class often forks out for an over-priced xuequfang in order that their child can get access to a particular school by being registered as living in that area. (The rules have recently been relaxed slightly to dampen rampant property speculation.) For non-Chinese viewers, none of this is explained in the early stages of the film – making it a mystery why the lead character is prepared to go to such lengths to buy such dingy, over-priced flat. However, local audiences will immediately get the reference in the film’s Chinese title (“Xuequfang, 72 Hours [to go]”), as the clock starts ticking for the hero, a stressed-out university lecturer with more than enough other problems, to come up with the money.

As he’s RMB600,000 short of the asking price, he’s given a week to come up with the necessary – though as a guarantee he puts down a deposit. Without even seeming to ask his wife’s opinion – she’s suffering from clinical depression, as well as a wounded hand from a pupil at their daughter’s kindergarten – he immediately puts their comfy flat on the market, just to get RMB600,000 as a deposit. And that’s where it starts to get complicated, with contracts appearing to have no force in rush-rush-rush New China, the teacher himself proving as untrustworthy as the seller of the xuequfang, and his complex private life (he’s in love with one of his pupils) further complicating matters.

Laying down trails that are only later developed, and building relationships that always seem up for renegotiation at any time, Chen’s script is neatly constructed, with a real sense of dramatic architecture, while also seeming to have its finger on the country’s nervy pulse. Though Happy is a black comedy, it’s also one with a serious point about current Mainland society and the potentially destructive forces lying within it. The vox-pop interviews during the end titles are interesting in this regard but end up being rather too much for what is meant to be a movie.

For all its social commentary and realistic setting, Happy basically falls within the genre of comedies about a central character’s life falling apart within a condensed time frame. Part of the interest is in watching how Chen riffs on the genre: the teacher’ plight is partly self-induced, partly forced by social pressures; and though he’s a university teacher (and therefore, traditionally, someone to be looked up to), he’s actually no better than the average citizen caught up in the country’s breakneck rush to succeed. The script is fairly non-judgemental, with everyone accepting the status quo, though the later prominence of the wife from a mute, tortured spectator to a crucial cog in the plot does establish a code of conduct that’s more admirable.

Casting, with several alumni from Chen’s Shanghai Theatre Academy alma mater and with mainly TV backgrounds, is impeccable throughout, with Guan Xuan 管轩 excellent as the stressed-out teacher struggling to keep his head above water, Fu Miao 傅淼 ditto as his deceptively quiet wife, veteran Xu Xing 徐幸 totally believable as their trusting maid, and the elegant Rong Rong 荣蓉 ditto as the wealthy, powerful mother of the teacher’s lover. Among the supports there’s a nicely sly performance by Teng Xuekun 腾学坤 as the teacher’s all-knowing colleague, while young actress Tu Hua 屠画 (Winter in My Heart 勇敢往事, 2018) puts some spine into the role of the student lover, especially in later scenes. Director Chen himself provides the voice for the comically patient (off-screen) lawyer in the final act.

Technical credits are modest and unadorned, with the everyday Shanghai setting caught by d.p. Shao Yiqin 邵一骎, no music except at the beginning and end, and tight editing by Yang Hanbing 杨寒冰. In a neat surprise, Hong Kong maverick director Liu Zhenwei 刘镇伟 [Jeff Lau] is credited as creative producer 监制.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Asia Light Films (CN), Line Film Media Investment (Shanghai) (CN), Beijing Lajin Film (CN).

Script: Chen Xiaoming. Photography: Shao Yiqin. Editing: Yang Hanbing. Music: A Kun. Art direction: Ding Yanming. Costumes: Zou Zongwei. Sound: Liu Chang, Hu Qianqian.

Cast: Guan Xuan (Fu Zhong), Xu Xing (Auntie Niu), Fu Miao (Liu Jiayuan), Tu Hua (Yuan Hang), Rong Rong (Yuan Hang’s mother), Teng Xuekun (Jia, university professor), Qian Yi (Mao Dou, estate agent), Qiqi (Chengcheng, Fu Zhong’s daughter), Liu Xiaodi (Zhang Xiaobao, Auntie Niu’s son), Chen Guo (Xiaoluo, estate agent), Cao Yuting (Li, kindergarten teacher), Xie Jingjing (Taotao’s mother), Ding Huiyu (student), Qian Yincheng (Taotao), Chen Xiaoming (Wu, lawyer).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Refreshing Chinese Cinema), 16 Jun 2019.

Release: China, 28 Jun 2019.