Snapchat's PR and film and television partners worked together, so we were able to see the movie ahead of its release at Arclight in Santa Monica. In a word, it's a really good shot. Some people say that it is like the juvenile version of "Miss Bird". I think it is better, more real, more cowardly, and more warm.
The content of the film is very simple, revolving around the last life of a little girl in the eighth grade (equivalent to the third year of junior high school in our country). The little girl Kayla is introverted and not outstanding, and is at the bottom of the class in American campuses that look at face and "social". However, her girly heart is no less than anyone else's. She hopes to get out of her introverted personality, to make friends with more people, and to have a nympho heart for the handsome guys in the class, but there is always a distance between reality and fantasy: Banhua has her own circle, and she basically rolls her eyes and even rolls her eyes on her mobile phone throughout the whole process. He didn't care about her existence; the handsome guy just wanted her to give him oral sex; he finally made a new friend in the senior year, but there was a bigger challenge waiting for her...
The clue to the whole film is the video recorded and uploaded by the little girl Kayla on YouTube. The number of people watching each video is in the single digits, and the theme of each video is something she can't do well but is teaching others how to do it. "How to make friends", "How to find yourself"... This director who was born in YouTube video gave full play to his strengths and made the audience laugh. But laughing and laughing, I think it's all too real: she's telling herself how to do it, and she's telling me how to do it. The little third-year me who was hidden in my heart slowly jumped out. Those topics that troubled me back then—how to communicate with people, how to endure the white eyes of Banhua, and how to intrigue with Banlila gang. Dealing with things, how to become more outgoing... These are things that I have always remembered.
And as the decades passed, I realized that things hadn't gotten better. You have grown up, learned to cover up, learned to focus on other things, such as work, such as firewood, rice, oil and salt; but those problems that troubled you back then, such as how to guess the psychology of others, how to have a cheeky chat with strangers, how to Only then can I know when I have to push my limits and when to show weakness and beg for mercy... I didn't know these things before, and I still won't. We hide shyness with indifference, if you see me with a cold face at a banquet, it's just because I don't know what to talk about; we hide inexperience with mediocrity, we do the same step by step day after day It's just because we don't want to step out of our comfort zone... We told ourselves countless times that life is just like this, the eighth-grade girl in her heart sighed.
So, I still admire Kayla, she is willing to try - although not necessarily a successful attempt - but she also wrote an emotional letter to her future self and put it in a time capsule, full of confidence in the future. This confidence is not "I will be better", but "it's okay to be bad", and a large part of this confidence comes from a super touching conversation with her father at the end. Kayla asked Dad: Are you sad that I have grown up like this? Dad said awkwardly and tenderly: How can it be sad? I swear in the name of God that I am happier than happy! You are so easy to fall in love with, from childhood to adulthood... I thought I wanted to teach you kindness, teach you to share, teach you this and that, but I found that you don't need to teach, you learn these things yourself. This single-parent father has worked hard to bring up his daughter little by little. Every day's growth is a miracle for him.
Yes, we are cowardly, introverted, and ugly, but we are all miracles.
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