Touching The Reef: The Softest Relationship In My Life

Liu Ying / Wen

Sophia Coppola is the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, director of the Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now. As an out and out "film second generation", although her film works touch on different times and regions, there is always a theme that can not escape: for example, in "somewhere", a film director who has to temporarily take on the role of father finds a moment of inner peace in her short-term relationship with her daughter; in "lost in Tokyo", she loses her temper We meet young popular stars in a strange Asian city and spend a long night with each other. Such a silent friendship can also be regarded as a variation of the relationship between father and daughter. In terms of role setting, the new film "hit the rocks" reminds people of "lost in Tokyo" 17 years ago. Bill Murray, a skillful actor in a wrinkled suit, plays Felix, a successful and wealthy art dealer. This time, he will face his own daughter, Laura, and her marriage, which she thinks is on the verge of collapse.

In fact, the question that "hit the reef" attempts to explore is very simple: when can a child get rid of the influence of his parents. Sophia Coppola gives her answer in a relatively easy way: never. The film begins with a black field where the father says to his daughter before her wedding, "before marriage, you belong to me. After marriage, you still belong to me. " This declarative dialogue, played by Bill Murray's Felix, speaks in a gentle tone, like the ubiquitous possession of children by parents in daily life. Her daughter, Laura, is a writer with a successful career and a happy family. Her husband, Dean, is the boss of an advertising agency. Her daughter is lovely. However, her husband's unintentional behavior after returning home from a business trip made her suspicious. She didn't want to create and confided her doubts to her father. After hearing this, the father came like a Savior and gave advice to her. However, he didn't expect that his daughter would be disgusted because he put too much personal emotion into it. In order to track her husband's whereabouts, the father and daughter flew all the way to Mexico and found that things were not as complicated as imagined.

The trigger point of the story line of "hit the reef" is the husband's extramarital affair. In the process of exploring the truth, the father and daughter take this opportunity to review each other's past in simple terms. A successful father in his career is a playboy in his life. He is good at courting behind women. The daughter witnessed everything, but did not trust men under the "Instigation" of her father, but she did not want to explore her husband's privacy too hard. Bill Murray almost plays Felix, an old man, and his supporting role, rashda Jones, also plays the short-term sense of hardship in career women's lives.

We can imagine that Sophia Coppola, who was led in and out of vanity fair by her father, must have integrated her own experience into the script creation. The most valuable point of the film is trying to build a bridge of dialogue through the two perspectives of daughter and father. Because of the success of his career, Felix is very popular in the upper class. He regards himself as a hero and plays such a role at home. Although her daughter Laura often looks up to her father, she can see his shortcomings and even his bad deeds more clearly. Father and daughter reveal their own feelings and confusion in the story, which constitutes the most charming and moving background of the film.

Of course, the director has no intention to deliberately create a reconciliation between the two generations, or to ingratiate the audience with warmth. There is also distrust between Laura and Felix, especially when her daughter is growing up and facing the authority of her father, she is no longer willing to be a follower. Although the title of the film is full of emotion. The end of the story, but also added a bit of mystery to the story. Family life and intergenerational kinship have never been black or white. Sophia Coppola uses an elite story which seems to be far away from the public to analyze this universal truth clearly.