Lucky day: I picked up a movie which has been lying in my computer hard drive for almost two years—the City Island, a story which is about the key words that I came up with: lie, secret, truth and finally, relief.
Like Chinese, some words are really paradoxically synonymous with each other. Everyone would LIE to keep their SECRETS which are most often TRUTHS; when they are told, it is a big RELIEF.
Vince: a correctional officer i.e. a prison guard by our knowledge, who has most deep and personal secrets:
1. He pretended to quit smoking, already.
2. He found his out-law son (Tony) in prison and brought him home for his release.
3. His biggest secret is that he had been dreaming to be an actor so he took an acting class for a long time while had been telling lies to his wife he had been playing poker games—he thought his wife would think his secret dream is stupid, absurd…a huge shame.
Joyce: his wife. She also had secrets. She kept smoking (probably pot), too. She pretended to believe her husband had been heading for poker games while she did believe he had an affair.
Shelley: his daughter. A future college graduate in her parents’ eyes while she was a stripper to earn his tuition for next semester—she lost the scholarship because she had been caught for pot-smoking.
Tony: the unexpected result from a psyche hooker mother and young Vince, had an urge on Joyce and found Shelley was a stripper but he neither did the thing with Joyce nor got a hand on Shelley—he even tried pull Shelley out of from the strip club while she was in thin dress.
…
When all these things add up, the full picture can make up to fulfill the so-called movie category: comedy.
Yet, it is not that hilarious, actually. Real wise comes from laughter, maybe. It brings me two “in” sayings—something like that.
1.Don’t judge so quickly.
2.Not everything is as it seems. —my most remembered lines from Prison Break. While the Chinese version might be a little real hilarious: 事情不是你想的那样。
Sadly, everyone, almost, has to tell lies in real life because we all have secrets: something we have to hide, we want it to pass, we do not want to hurt someone else, we do not want to share to expose our weakness… we do not want to look like a loser. At least, I do.
However, things might be a lot easier by simply doing the simple thing: tell him/her:
I have an illegitimate son.
I still smoke.
I want to be an actor.
I dance in a strip class to make money.
…
Whether these “covert truths” are sweet or not, telling them gives you a big relief.
Don’t hide things too deep if they make our life already a mess.
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