Close to Love

我们的样子像极了爱情

China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 121 mins.

Director: Wang Zijun 王梓骏.

Rating: 6/10.

Excellent chemistry between the young leads gives this “platonic” rom-com a fresh feel, at least in its first half.

STORY

Changsha city, Hunan province, central China, spring 1997. One day, as she seems to be stuck up a tree, primary school student Xu Yi (Xia Zixuan) helps down fellow student Gao Fang (Zhang Xiran) and offers her a tissue for a sneezing allergy she has. They argue when she tries to bully him; when he checks where she is at school, he hears she’s been transferred. Spring 2009. By chance, Xu Yi (Li Xiaoqian) bumps into Gao Fang (Qi Yuchen) at a preschool education college where he’s studying screenwriting and direction. She denies being Gao Fang and says her name is Gao Xiaonan, but she won’t say why she changed it. During a meal with her and her best friend, Lili (Xiu Yuxiu), she runs off and climbs into the car of a rich-kid student friend, Zhou Tao (Ding Guansen). Xu Yi then learns that both of her parents are now dead and, because she’s been left with a mountain of debt, has been doing many part-time jobs to pay her way through college. Her name change was to give her a fresh start in life. Xu Yi is a year behind Gao Xiaonan in the college. He apologises to her for being pushy and she finally forgives him. She reveals that the day they first met by chance she’d just been dumped by her boyfriend as he was leaving to study in New York. Out together walking one evening, she pretends to be his girlfriend when he bumps into some old high-school friends and a former girlfriend, Zhang Wenwen (Jiang Zhuojun). Later, Xu Yi and Gao Xiaonan celebrate her 20th birthday by watching the sun rise together. Another evening, after being stranded late in the rain, they both go to a hotel together and watch Casablanca on the TV; but the evening suddenly ends in a surprising way. When Xu Yi is befriended by a student, Liu Xiyuan (Xu Tongxin), who’s always fancied him, Gao Xiaonan backs off and suggests they just stay best friends. Liu Xiyuan then introduces into their circle a male friend, Chen Shi (Gao Zhiting), who falls for Gao Xiaonan. Parallel to all of this, Xu Yi’s best pal, Deng Xiang (Lin Junyi), is having an up-and-down relationship with Gao Xiaonan’s best friend, Lili. But then, at the college’s 2011 graduation ceremony, something happens that makes Gao Xiaonan disappear again from Xu Yi’s life.

REVIEW

Excellent chemistry between its two young leads and a tendency to bend generic material in interesting ways are the main strengths of youth rom-com Close to Love 我们的样子像极了爱情, an interesting first feature by Henan-born director Wang Zijun 王梓骏 that unfortunately turns into a more conventional romantic tearjerker in the second half. Wang, 32, previously made some shorts as well as the smartly packaged Nothing but Breaking Up 不过是分手 (2018), an online series of eight comic shorts about a young couple’s relationship. The original Chinese title of Close to Love roughly translates as “We Very Much Look As If We’re in Love” – which just about sums up the plot about two young people who pretend to be platonic best friends but aren’t, of course, at all. Alas, it took only a feeble RMB16 million in the Mainland in August.

Wang doesn’t get a credit on the script, which is attributed to Liu Tong 刘同 (the film’s creative producer 监制) and neophyte Zeng Tao 曾韬. Liu, 41, worked on the production side of youth rom-coms Sad Fairy Tale 伤心童话 (2012) and the much better My Old Classmate 同桌的妳 (2014) before co-writing Yesterday Once More 谁的青春不迷茫 (2016), based on his own novel, so his experience was likely a considerable influence on the film. The combative relationship is set up by an opening scene, set in 1997, when the pair first meet as primary-school kids; the main action takes place during 2009-12, after they bump into each other at college, where she’s a year ahead of him. Her seniority is one of the main drivers in the relationship, with him always the supplicant and her the more serious of the two. The platonic nature of their friendship should get rid of the usual will-they/won’t-they aspect of rom-coms, though in fact it’s clear early on that they’re in love in a very non-platonic way, giving their close encounters (especially at an overnight hotel where they watch Casablanca) an extra sexual frisson that the film-makers make the most of.

Early scenes at college, with the boy and his larky roommate, and the girl and her BFF, have a fresh feel despite being generic. Things start to turn more conventional at the 50-minute mark with the introduction of another girl into the equation just when the leads seem ready to become a proper couple. But it’s the final 50 minutes, set after the boy has graduated, that is the most generic part of the movie, with sudden reversals that are straight out of the romance playbook. In general the second half feels very stretched out, with even the buoyant, likeable music becoming conventionally melodramatic – prior to an uplifting montage that’s tacked on at the end to give the film a positive close.

Despite these faults, it’s still worth a look for the leads, who are remarkably well paired. In her second release of the year, after a small supporting role in the risible youth melodrama Ten Years of Loving You 十年一品温如言 (2022), Qi Yuchen 漆昱辰 is a revelation as the girl from a complicated background who makes the men in her life work hard to get her; the young Chengdu native invests her character with subtleties that are way beyond the script. Rarely for a millennial rom-com nowadays, 21-year-old Shanghai Theatre Academy student Li Xiaoqian 李孝谦 (the nerdy classmate in Stay with Me 我是真的讨厌异地恋, 2022) makes the male lead equally engaging, especially in goofy scenes with the fine Lin Junyi 林俊毅 (channeling a bit of Zhou Xingchi 周星池 [Stephen Chow]) as his best pal. It’s a shame that Lin’s character, who has a parallel romance with the girl’s BFF (nicely played by Xiu Yuxiu 修雨秀), is given short shrift later on as the film zeroes in on the main couple and a competitive female classmate (Xu Tongxin 许童心, okay).

Production values are high, with graceful, gliding camerawork by d.p. Fan Chao 范超 (An Elephant Sitting Still 大象席地而坐, 2018) that’s fully coloured without being unrealistically saturated, and an initially engaging, very smooth score by Yang Jionghan 杨炅翰. The unfamiliar setting is Changsha, capital of (Liu’s native) Hunan province, with shooting also in Chenzhou (south of Changsha) and Beijing.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Little Forest (Yangzhou) Pictures (CN).

Script: Liu Tong, Zeng Tao. Photography: Fan Chao. Editing: Yan Bowen. Music: Yang Jionghan. Music supervision: Chen Yu. Vocals: Zhou Shen. Art direction: Wang Diandian. Styling: Wang Tao. Sound: Liu Yanjun, Fu Kang. Action: Qian Zhengzhong. Special effects: Guo Zi. Visual effects: Liu Xintu, Liu Yuanfu. Performance direction: Xu Chengwei. Executive direction: Xu Chengwei.

Cast: Li Xiaoqian (Xu Yi), Qi Yuchen (Gao Fang/Gao Xiaonan), Lin Junyi (Deng Xiang), Xiu Yuxiu (Lili), Xu Tongxin (Liu Xiyuan), Ding Guansen (Zhou Tao), Gao Zhiting (Chen Shi), Zhang Yicong (He Jun), Li Guangjie (Han, TV station boss), Shen Yue (real-estate agent), Sun Hao (police officer), Liu Dongqin (Peter, Zhang Wenwen’s boyfriend), Zhang Xiran (young Gao Feng), Xia Zixuan (young Xu Yi), Yao Qingran (photography class teacher), Xiao Dingchen (drama class teacher), Liang Yueyang (young girl selling flowers), Wang Zicheng (Cui Ping), Jiang Zhuojun (Zhang Wenwen, Xu Yi’s former girlfriend), Zhou Dehua (Zhou, entertainment news editor), Zhou Shen (star being interviewed).

Release: China, 4 Aug 2022.