更新时间:2012-04-10
异客影评：Interesting Fictional Portrayal of Asian Male Lu's Experience with Life, Race, and Religion
This is a review directly duplicated from IMDb.
The first thing that caught my attention was the sound/music that was used throughout the film. It sounds appropriately like a metronome, like the gentle repetitious back and forth of life and time… like this all happens A LOT, which is what we get from Lu's plight, especially when he gets locked out by Britney and meets a missionary named Joshua that seems desperately interested in trying to share the word with Lu, a Buddhist. From bra flicking and whistling while he pees, offering his roommate food he cooked even though he knows she'll say no, this is all seemingly enacted weekly, if not daily. The same music is heard when Lu explains he feelings about the Bible, which is taken from the others with awkward silence and looks that suggest that they feel shame not in their being wrong, but in Lu being wrong. When we cease to hear the music, it's almost as if THIS is when the true story waiting to be told begins, THIS is where something out of the ordinary will happen. And it does. No more silly Lu mistakes. No more day to day.
Another large aspect of the film that stands out is the use of race. There are three races of men characterized in the film: a Chinese man (Lu) who is laid back, forgetful, redundant, and with a general lack of bias and pretense; a Caucasian man (Joshua) who is persistent in wanting to talk with Lu and Britney with obvious ties to the Christian religion and biases; a black man (Michael) who also comes off as slightly aggressive in delivery, as well as goofy and potentially obnoxious with his own sense of bias. This is not to say that the film portrays one race as superior to others, but rather works interestingly off of what could be stereotypes and potentially the writer's own experiences. This is similarly seen in the religion aspect of the film.
Other small things that I really liked were the minute eye rolls on the behalf of Lu, almost a coping mechanism, helping for the watcher to relate, the breaking of the fourth wall at one point during the conversation of religion, pulling the viewer into the debate and causing us to feel judged as well, and the simplicity of the title that adds to the monotony.
The biggest problem that I had with "At Home" was in some of the line delivery by some of the actors, a few parts not entirely clear at first listening, as well as a few moments when the actor didn't present the lines in a way completely believable to the character.
Overall I thought it was a fun, short film to analyze.
