Her Story
好东西
China, 2024, colour, 2.35:1, 122 mins.
Director: Shao Yihui 邵艺辉.
Rating: 7/10.
Writer-director Shao Yihui keeps the bar high with her second feature, another lightly comic relationships movie set in Shanghai, even if it’s a notch down overall.
STORY
Shanghai, 2024, spring. Journalist/editor Wang Tiemei (Song Jia) and her nine-year-old daughter Wang Moli (Zeng Mumei) move into a flat in a traditional old building in the city’s French Concession area. Their previous flat was modern, cold-looking and more expensive; but Wang Tiemei has been out-of-work for six months, following the closure of two publications, so has been forced to move for financial reasons. She has just been offered a lower-paid job by a former professional admirer (Jiang Yi) to use her experience to help save his online publication, 好东西 (literally, “Good Things”), a mixture of clickbait and serious journalism that’s struggling financially. At her new home, Wang Tiemei gets to know fellow tenant Lin Xiaoye (Zhong Chuxi), a younger woman who’s rather eccentric, likes a drink or three, is a serial hoarder, and frequently invents white lies. She has a boyfriend, Richard Hu (Ren Bin), who is a divorced optician and confesses he’s not into long-term relationships. To keep him interested in her, and to save face, Lin Xiaoye tells him she’s actually married with a nine-year-old daughter. Lin Xiaoye sings in an alternative band, Unconditional Surrender 无条件投降, whose drummer, Xiaoma (Zhang Yu), is a music graduate who also teaches various instruments. Wang Tiemei tries to convince her daughter – who is convinced she is just a spectator in life and has no talent for anything – to study a musical instrument with Xiaoma. Wang Tiemei and her precocious daughter have a fractious relationship, with the latter even preferring the company of her father (Zhao Youting) who, despite being divorced from Wang Tiemei, has a habit of calling round unannounced and upsetting everyone with his lack of social skills. Both equally eccentric, Lin Xiaoye starts to bond with Wang Moli while babysitting her. Finally she helps to persuade the young girl to study drumming with Xiaoma who, in his shy way, has developed a fancy for Wang Tiemei. Lin Xiaoye tells him that Wang Tiemei is out of his league, but he persists, despite the obvious hostility of Wang Tiemei’s ex-husband whenever he shows up. Wang Tiemei herself shows no signs of discouraging Xiaoma’s friendship.
REVIEW
After her striking debut with B for Busy 爱情神话 – one of the best and freshest Mainland films of 2021 – writer-director Shao Yihui 邵艺辉, 34, keeps the bar high with Her Story 好东西, another lightly comic relationships movie set in Shanghai in which characters are non-judgementally seen from all angles, in a way reminiscent of the late, great French director Claude Sautet. Beautifully cast down the line, with a terrific lead role for actress Song Jia 宋佳 that she totally makes her own, it took a very nice RMB721 million on release late last year, almost three times the solid hawl of Busy.
Where Busy centred on a divorced, middle-aged painter (played by well-known comedian/film-maker Xu Zheng 徐峥) and the three women in his life, Her Story has a tighter focus – on a middle-aged journalist/editor, her precocious young daughter and an eccentric younger woman in the same apartment building. The plot – or rather, as in Busy, the collection of setpieces – does include the three men in their lives but it’s the relationships between the women that drive the film. If Her Story is a notch down from Busy, that’s because (a) it’s a good 15 minutes too long, especially in the repetitive final half-hour and (b) Shao’s script too often digresses into didactic (if ironic) discussions of gender roles which not only ring false amid the naturally flowing dialogue but also could be stripped out without harming the movie at all.
Whereas Busy’s dialogue was almost all in Shanghainese rather than Mandarin – adding considerably to its verismo feel – that of Her Story is more of a mixture, with Mandarin predominant. Though the film is clearly set, again, in the distinctive, tree-lined French Concession, it’s less of a Shanghai neighbourhood movie than Busy was and more a relationships movie that happens to be set in Shanghai. There’s no special feel this time for a particular district and its denizens, though the way in which the relationships are worked out is very similar to the earlier film. Once again, few characters are ever identified by their full names, or a name at all; and d.p. Chen Jun 陈军 is again on hand to convey an understated sense of reality in which the performances are the main thing.
Things kick off with single mum Wang Tiemei moving into a flat in a traditional old building with her mouthy, nine-year-old daughter Wang Moli, aka Momo. There she gets to know a younger fellow tenant, Lin Xiaoye, who’s an eccentric free spirit, likes a drink or three, is a serial white-liar, and has a lover who’s not into long-term relationships. Wang Tiemei’s life is complicated by her ex-husband constantly popping round in a possessive way and making embarrassing social gaffes. Meanwhile, after a period out of work, Wang Tiemei has finally been offered a job sorting out a troubled online publication, 好东西 (literally “Good Things”, the film’s Chinese title), that’s in financial difficulties and is forced to rely on clickbait to survive.
The viewer is gradually fed information about the characters as the film progresses. The straight-talking, impulsive Wang Tiemei is somewhere in her early 40s, originally from Taiyuan (Shao’s own hometown), in the northern province of Shanxi, and used to be an investigative journalist. Prior to her move, she and her daughter lived in one of Shanghai’s soulless, modern (and much more expensive) flats. Momo is precocious beyond her years, speaking like an adult, constantly challenging her mother, and maintaining she is one of life’s spectators, with no special talent for anything. It’s never explained how Lin Xiaoye manages to survive, but the viewer learns that she ran away from her parents at some stage and now sings in an alternative band. Babysitting for Momo, she bonds with the young girl and tries to persuade her to study music under her band’s drummer, the shy but likeable Xiaoma (Zhang Yu), who’s meanwhile developed a liking for Wang Tiemei.
Those are the main ingredients which Shao stirs around and gently simmers in her script; there’s no standard dramatic development, or any sudden deus ex machina, but via one sequence after another the audience gets to know the characters with all their faults and good points. And at the end of the day, life goes on. Standouts among the setpieces are a lovely scene where Wang Tiemei meets Xiaoma for the first time just before her ex turns up and makes one social gaffe after another; a bonding sequence where Lin Xiaoye tries to get Momo to identify common household sounds, all of which she fails to do; and a very funny scene where Wang Tiemei and Lin Xiaoye pretend to be lesbian partners when the latter’s lover misinterprets one of her tall stories.
Unlike Busy with Xu, Her Story has no big-name star at its centre; but Song, 44, an actress with considerable experience but too rarely in leading film roles (Falling Flowers 萧红, 2012; The Poet 诗人, 2018; Back to the Wharf 风平浪静, 2020), still anchors the film with a fully-engaged performance as the single mum that shows strength without being showy and swings between sympathetic and annoying. She’s perfectly partnered by Zhong Chuxi 钟楚曦, 32, a former dancer who’s always impressed (Youth 芳华, 2017; Dude’s Manual 脱单告急, 2018; Wild Grass 荞麦疯长, 2020) but who here plays down her usual smokey sexuality to reveal herself as a subtle comedienne in the role of the wacky neighbour. Holding her head high in such company is Zeng Mumei 曾慕梅, 11, the daughter of d.p./editor Zeng Jian 曾剑 and actress Mei Ting 梅婷, in her first major role after a small one in crime drama The Fallen Bridge 断•桥 (2022), on which her father was d.p. In a precocious role that could easily have become tiresome, Zeng manages to make it both real and sympathetic. Among the men, Taiwan’s Zhao Youting 赵又廷 [Mark Chao] is surprisingly good as the jealous ex-husband who’s a perpetual social embarrassment, and Zhang Yu 章宇 his usual low-key self as the drummer who fancies Wang Tiemei. (Zhang also played opposite Song in Back to the Wharf.)
Scoring by Wen Zi 文子, aka Wen Zhibo 文智波, is minimal and underplayed; instead, the soundtrack features plenty of songs (not by him) that don’t intrude too much. Editing by Shao herself is generally fine, and very smooth, though the final half-hour keeps repeating points which have already been made, and the film should really have ended at the 114-minute mark as the screen goes dark when Momo prepares to go onstage. Underlining some of the similarities between the two movies, Her Story was known during production as 爱情神话2, literally “Love Myth(s) 2”.
CREDITS
Presented by MaxTimes (Shanghai) (CN), Shanghai Film Group (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Shanghai Juce Culture & Media (CN), China Film (CN), Changchun Film Studio Group (CN), Unison Frame Pictures (Hubei) (CN). Produced by MaxTimes (Shanghai) (CN).
Script: Shao Yihui. Camera: Chen Jun. Editing: Shao Yihui. Music: Wen Zi [Wen Zhibo]. Art direction: Zhong Cheng. Costumes: Yan Meishu. Styling: Wei Xiangrong. Sound: Zhang Jinyan, Long Xiaozhu. Visual effects: Shi Ye. Executive direction: Cao Lei.
Cast: Song Jia (Wang Tiemei), Zhong Chuxi (Lin Xiaoye), Zeng Mumei (Wang Moli/Momo), Zhang Yu (Xiaoma), Zhao Youting [Mark Chao] (Wang Tiemei’s ex-husband), Zhou Yemang (front-desk security), Ren Bin (Richard Hu, Lin Xiaoye’s boyfriend), Zhang Chi (guitarist), Wang Ju (Xiaolu), Kong Lianshun (Xiaozhou), Jiang Yi (editor), Lu Huiyuan (Xiaoguo), Shao Junze (Xiaoshao), An Dong (Zhang Jiaxin), Feng Maya (Maya), Chen Ruowen (Wenwen).
Premiere: China Golden Rooster & Hundred Flowers Film Festival, 13 Nov 2024.
Release: China, 22 Nov 2024.