Stay with Me
我是真的讨厌异地恋
China, 2022, colour, 2.35:1, 107 mins.
Directors: Wu Yang 吴洋, Zhou Nanshen 周男燊.
Rating: 3/10.
Though glossily packaged, this generic millennial romance has zero chemistry between its colourless leads.
STORY
Fuzhou city, Fujian province, eastern China, May 2013. After three years of admiring him from afar, Zhao Yiyi (Ren Min), a student at Yulin senior high, finally manages to have a few words with her classmate Xu Jiashu (Xin Yulai). He is a brilliant student who wants to be a surgeon, she is always bottom of the class. Her best friend, Qiaoqiao (Zhou Yutong), appears to like him, but Zhao Yiyi keeps stressing that they’re not suited to each other. That summer they are all due to graduate and at the final assembly, where Xu Jiashu makes the key student address, he unexpectedly declares his love for Zhao Yiyi. His friend Li Tang (Li Xiaoqian) does the same to Qiaoqiao but she turns him down as he plans to go abroad. Xu Jiashu travels north to a medical school in Beijing, while Zhao Yiyi goes south to study journalism in Xiamen along with Qiaoqiao. Their “long-distance relationship” begins. Li Tang, who’s changed his plans and is trying to get into the same college, starts re-courting Qiaoqiao, who still turns him down. Initially Zhao Yiyi and Xu Jiashu text each other constantly; but she then becomes suspicious about a one of his fellow students, the pretty Jiang Xinran (Qi Yandi). This annoys Xu Jiashu, but Zhao Yiyi makes a surprise trip to Beijing during the winter and they make up, finally going to bed together. Meanwhile, Li Tang becomes jealous over seeing Qiaoqiao with another man, and is arrested after getting into a fight. Xiamen, Sep 2014. After spending all summer together, Zhao Yiyi is still obsessed with Xu Jianshu every minute of the day; Qiaoqiao and other friends Chichi (Zhu Danni) and Nanxing (Xiu Yuxiu) advise her to ease off and concentrate more on her studies. After she hasn’t called for a while, Xu Jiashu pays her a surprise visit in Xiamen. Beijing, Nov 2014. Xu Jiashu is offered a future place on a US student-exchange programme that would keep him abroad for two to three years; he doesn’t tell Zhao Yiyui about the offer. When she pays him a surprise visit in Beijing, she sees him with Jiang Xinran; this sparks another row centred on their “long-distance relationship”, but they eventually make up. Fuzhou, Jul 2015. Zhao Yiyi, Xu Jiashu, Li Tang and Qiaoqiao all celebrate being together for a while. Beijing, Nov 2016. Zhao Yiyi gets an internship on a Beijing weekly so they can finally end their “long-distance relationship” and live together. She then discovers he gave up his place on the exchange programme in order not be separated from her again.
REVIEW
The Chinese title – “I’m Really Fed Up with (This) Long-Distance Relationship” – says it all in Stay with Me 我是真的讨厌异地恋, a generic romance (from senior high to college) of two millennials whose lives are entirely ruled by their mobile phones. Lead writer Fu Dandi 付丹迪, 31, previously worked on equally generic youth material (Love Will Tear Us Apart 我要我们在一起, 2021; Lost and Found 以年为单位的恋爱, 2021) that was luckily elevated by good lead chemistry. Here, however, there’s no chemistry at all between leads Ren Min 任敏 and Xin Yunlai 辛云来 – both launched by school-bullying drama Cry Me a Sad River (2018), a modest hit – and Fu and her co-writers don’t provide any reason for audiences over the age of 25 to have any interest in them for 100-or-so minutes. The best that can be said about this first theatrical feature by Wu Yang 吴洋 (a marketing executive at Enlight) and 30-year-old Zhou Nanshen 周男燊 (who previously directed a couple of shorts and the web movies Rural Star 城郊披头士, 2020, and The Guide to Farewell 告别练习, 2020) is that it’s smoothly mounted and always looks glossy under the lens of d.p Zhao Longlong 赵龙龙 (paranormal psychodrama The Fourth Wall 第四面墙, 2019). Surprisingly it took RMB164 million, a face-saving amount in the middle of a Covid pandemic.
The back-of-a-coaster plot follows class dunce Zhao Yiyi and class genius Xu Jiashu as they declare their love for each other when leaving high school in Fuzhou (eastern coastal China) and are then separated when he goes off north to a medical school Beijing and she heads a bit further south to study journalism in Xiamen. They occasionally surprise each other with unannounced visits but mostly text each other constantly and have huffy rows that are quickly resolved. Ren, 22, a ballet dancer-turned-actress who has so far failed to live up to her initial promise in River (viz. Ten Years of Loving You 十年一品温如言, 2022), is terminally annoying as the squeaky-voiced, love-struck heroine, while Xin, 27, is as pretty and wooden as he was in River. Not for the first time in such material, the supporting roles have more character, especially the girl’s no-nonsense BFF played by TV actress Zhou Yutong 周雨彤, 27, channelling a little of comedienne Ren Suxi 任素汐, though her own romantic story with a nerdy classmate (Li Xiaoqian 李孝谦, goofy) is half-heartedly developed in the poorly structured screenplay – which also seems to set up romantic complications for the two leads but then just leaves the extra characters hanging. As is becoming the norm, the characters’ parents hardly have a role to play in the millennials’ story. In a jolting celebrity cameo, comedian Deng Chao 邓超 pops up halfway as a police officer dispensing advice.
The film was largely shot in Xiamen and Harbin, the latter doubling for snowy (aah!) Beijing.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Youth Enlight (Yangzhou) Pictures (CN), Beijing Yingshida Vision Consultant (CN).
Script: Fu Dandi, Feng Liming, Zhou Yifan. Photography: Zhao Longlong. Editing: Chen Cheng, Wu Yiyue, Zhang Huadu. Music: Guo Haowei. Art direction: Zheng Chen. Styling: Li Hua. Sound: Liu Lijie, Du Duzhi, Jiang Yizhen. Visual effects: Lao A, Lai Weijia (A Picture Media). Executive direction: Fan Zhigang, Hou Dingyi.
Cast: Ren Min (Zhao Yiyi), Xin Yunlai (Xu Jiashu), Li Xiaoqian (Li Tang), Cao Weiyu (Zhao Yiyi’s father), Zhang Shu (Zhao Yiyi’s mother), Zhu Danni (Chichi), Xiu Yuxiu (Nanxing), Zhou Yutong (Qiaoqiao), Chen Youwei (Sai He, guitarist), Qi Yandi (Jiang Xinran), Li Junyi (Yu Jin), Ma Zhe (Fan Lei), Deng Chao (police officer), Cao Qi (head teacher).
Release: China, 29 Apr 2022.