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4
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needs a ghost
There's a sort of Thai movie I often adore - an unrushed two hours, with the first half or so exploring the wee world they've created before they start to reveal its poignancy. Add in a ghost and maybe it's about grief and loss. Not crowded or heavy in the way of many western films, but gently making space for those emotions and surrounding them in kindness and warmth.
Love Stuck follows that general pattern - the set-up of two people wandering around the city showing each other cool things was perfect for that - but the delivery of its emotions in the latter half felt in your face and saccharine. Not the acting, that was fine. Or the way the Big Thing was telegraphed well in advance. But the music which was both cloying musically and had lyrics that spelled everything out - in English, granted, but it wasn't the way Thai production companies tend to use English lyrics. Some of the dialogue and other directorial choices. Thais usually do this sort of thing so much better.
I watched the US original to see if this remake was following its lead there. A few things really leapt out watching them back to back. One was how the early events they showed each other involved bad things happening to other people, which was commented on - "We really shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortunes" "But it is objectively hilarious" (they weren't). Does it say something about Thais and US Americans that the Thai remake chose to stay well clear of that? I'm an outsider looking in at both cultures so I don't know. Given how much else the movies had in common, it felt pertinent. Also the amount of casual destruction the US pair wreaked to amuse themselves.
Another bit I don't know what to make of is that while both wrote the young woman as the smarter/better in school of the pair, the US version included language like "Mark was right"/"I was wrong" from the young woman, with no reciprocity from the young man, and had the solution to their problem solved by his early input, information gathering and suggestion + her working alone to bring it about whereas the Thai handling let it be her smarts + them working together. There was more, including a bit in their romantic arc. All in all, her being smart was a threat to the man in the US version but not the Thai.
The music in the original wasn't so obvious about what we were supposed to feel but the beginning was more cynical. It's like they (Amazon execs? director and screenwriters?) just picked up the entire emotional arc of Love Stuck as a whole to move it away from the cynicism (that much is understandable for a Thai remake) even though it turned the second half poignancy to syrup. I'm at a loss for how else to explain or understand this. I've not seen anything from Thailand make its emotions so trite or saccharine. Perhaps the whys are US corporate execs looking to cash in on interest in Asian dramas? - the English language lyrics does suggest it was intended for a US audience.
Thai filmmakers and scriptwriters can handle emotion so well. Why they didn't in this, why it was more cloying and thus superficial than the US original feels very strange. From the other comments and some of the reviews, it works for many. But I can't recommend it. Not when there is so much better cinema from Thailand.
This needed a ghost - metaphorically - and the grounded, gentle Thai way of revealing the layers of emotions in this sort of story.
(Mid-level marks for "Story" because I had nowhere else to specify that my criticisms are about the way it was handled, rather than the plot itself.)
Love Stuck follows that general pattern - the set-up of two people wandering around the city showing each other cool things was perfect for that - but the delivery of its emotions in the latter half felt in your face and saccharine. Not the acting, that was fine. Or the way the Big Thing was telegraphed well in advance. But the music which was both cloying musically and had lyrics that spelled everything out - in English, granted, but it wasn't the way Thai production companies tend to use English lyrics. Some of the dialogue and other directorial choices. Thais usually do this sort of thing so much better.
I watched the US original to see if this remake was following its lead there. A few things really leapt out watching them back to back. One was how the early events they showed each other involved bad things happening to other people, which was commented on - "We really shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortunes" "But it is objectively hilarious" (they weren't). Does it say something about Thais and US Americans that the Thai remake chose to stay well clear of that? I'm an outsider looking in at both cultures so I don't know. Given how much else the movies had in common, it felt pertinent. Also the amount of casual destruction the US pair wreaked to amuse themselves.
Another bit I don't know what to make of is that while both wrote the young woman as the smarter/better in school of the pair, the US version included language like "Mark was right"/"I was wrong" from the young woman, with no reciprocity from the young man, and had the solution to their problem solved by his early input, information gathering and suggestion + her working alone to bring it about whereas the Thai handling let it be her smarts + them working together. There was more, including a bit in their romantic arc. All in all, her being smart was a threat to the man in the US version but not the Thai.
The music in the original wasn't so obvious about what we were supposed to feel but the beginning was more cynical. It's like they (Amazon execs? director and screenwriters?) just picked up the entire emotional arc of Love Stuck as a whole to move it away from the cynicism (that much is understandable for a Thai remake) even though it turned the second half poignancy to syrup. I'm at a loss for how else to explain or understand this. I've not seen anything from Thailand make its emotions so trite or saccharine. Perhaps the whys are US corporate execs looking to cash in on interest in Asian dramas? - the English language lyrics does suggest it was intended for a US audience.
Thai filmmakers and scriptwriters can handle emotion so well. Why they didn't in this, why it was more cloying and thus superficial than the US original feels very strange. From the other comments and some of the reviews, it works for many. But I can't recommend it. Not when there is so much better cinema from Thailand.
This needed a ghost - metaphorically - and the grounded, gentle Thai way of revealing the layers of emotions in this sort of story.
(Mid-level marks for "Story" because I had nowhere else to specify that my criticisms are about the way it was handled, rather than the plot itself.)
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