Martin (John Amplas), a young man who looks around 20-years-old, boards a train in Indianapolis, Indiana for New York. At night, he breaks into a sleeping car and sedates a woman with a syringe full of narcotics. She struggles, but he tells her not to struggle or be upset because she wont feel pain. After a few minutes, the woman falls asleep, and Martin has sex with the unconscious woman. Afterwards, he slices her wrists with a razor blade so he can drink her blood. The woman bleeds to death in her sleep.
In the morning, the train stops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Martin disembarks. He is met by Tata Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) an elderly and hostile old man who claims to be his cousin from the Old World. Together, they travel by another train to the town of Braddock, a dying industrial suburb. They walk to Cuda's large house where he shows Martin his living quarters. Cuda then accuses Martin of being an 84-year-old vampire from his old country. He has taken in Martin because he is family, but tells him, "First I will save your soul. Then I shall destroy you." Martin denies being a vampire and implies that Cuda is merely his uncle rather than his cousin. Cuda then puts up strings of garlic on the doors to his and his granddaughter's room, and then holds up a small cross when Martin approaches him. Martin takes away the cross, and even takes a bite of the garlic mocking these attempts by saying bitterly, "There's no real magic... ever". Cuda tells Martin that he can come and go as he pleases. But he also warns Martin that he will kill him if he kills anyone in Braddock. He also tells Martin to stay away from his granddaughter Christine (Christine Forrest), whom arrives home from her job that evening.
Cuda introduces Christine to Martin, but also warns her to stay away from him. But Christine instead strikes up a friendship with Martin who confides in her about his vampire heritage. When Cuda later confirms Martin's claims to be a vampire, Christine, not surprisingly, refuses to believe either one. She thinks that Cuda and the other members of her family have driven Martin to insanity by making him think that he is a vampire. It is never revealed if Martin really is a vampire, or just a shy and lonely youth with troubled issues. Christine is the only person that Martin gets the courage to talk to. When Christine's boyfriend Arthur (Tom Savini) arrives at the house for dinner, Martin stops talking and backs away despite Arthur's attempt at a conversation. Christine later confides in Martin that she hopes to leave Braddock someday with Arthur, even though Martin points out that Arthur treats her badly and is both verbally and physically abusive towards her.
When Christine sees that Martin won't talk to anyone else, she buys him a phone which he installs in his room. Martin begins to repeatingly call a radio talk show where he describes what it's like to be a vampire. He becomes known on the radio as "the Count" to all the listeners. But the patronizing host (Michael Gornick) thinks he's just crazy.
Martin gets a job at Cuda's grocery store of stocking shelves, hauling boxes around, and even gets to be a delivery boy for some of the customers. One of his customers is a certain Abby Santini (Elyane Nadeau), who becomes taken in with Martin. She is a very friendly young woman who is depressed when she tells Martin that her husband is unfaithful. But Martin still does not have the nerve to talk with her, so she is happy to have someone to confide in with her life problems. Martin phones the radio show host to describe his infatuation with the housewife and senses that she wants to have sex with him. When the radio show host asks Martin if it is a sexual problem that he has involving women criticizing him during sex, Martin replies that he has never had sex with a woman who was awake.
One day, Martin travels by train to outside Braddock to look for victims. At a supermarket, he follows a young woman (Sarah Venable) home to her posh suburban house. He sees the woman's husband (Richard Rubenstein) leave for a long business trip, and Martin decides this would be the right time for more feeding. Martin returns to the house after dark and breaks in through the garage door. But it is Martin who gets the surprise when he bursts into her bedroom to find her in bed with her adulterous lover Lewis (Al Levitsky). After a vicious struggle, Martin jabs both of them with hyprodermic needles with narcotics, and waits for the drugs to take affect. He drags the unconscious body of Lewis from the house to a clump of trees across the street where he kills him by shoving a broken tree branch into his neck and drinks his blood. Martin returns to the house where he has sex with the unconscious woman. But out of compassion and pity, he decides to let her live.
Martin begins to have romantic monochrome visions of his vampire past (real or imagined), where he drained blood from a young woman and was chased through the streets of a nameless European town by a torch-lit mob.
During one Sunday at church, Cuda brings home Father Howard (George A. Romero) who asks him about the possibility of exorcism and demon possession. Father Howard calls upon the elderly Father Zulemans (Clifford Forrest, Jr.) over at Cuda's request. Together, Cuda and Zulemans confront Martin his bedroom and attempt to perform an exorcism on him. At this point, Martin remembers (another real or imaginary flashback), in the Old Country of people trying to perform an exorcism on him, and he flees them. Martin then flees from Cuda and Zuelmas as well. A little later that night, Martin terrorizes Cuda in a children's playground when he puts on a Dracula cape and puts false fangs into his mouth to pretend that he really is a vampire.
One day, Martin finally musters the courage to talk with Mrs. Santini during a routine delivery to her house where he tells her that he's aware of her attempts to seduce him and wants now to have sex with her. After having sex for the first time, Mrs. Santini becomes more depressed for she tells Martin that her husband just left her because she discovered that she cannot bear children, and that her desires towards him are based on sex and nothing else. But Martin wants to stay with her and help her move on with her life. Martin tells the radio show host about his affair with the housewife and that he no longer has the urge to attack other women.
Meanwhile, Arthur meets with Cuda and tells him that he wants Christine to leave town with him so they can get married and start a family. But Christine becomes angry at Cuda when he tells Arthur that insanity runs in their family and he shouldn't consider having children with her. Shortly afterwards, Christine packs up and leaves Braddock for New York with Arthur despite Martin telling her that Arthur is abusive towards her. But her mind is made up. Before leaving, Christine tells Martin that she really has no ill feelings towards him and just wants to make a fresh start with her life. She says goodbye to him and promises to write. But Martin knows that with an abusive and possessive man in Christine's life, she probably won't.
Depressed over losing his one true friend, Martin phones the radio show host and tells him that he's getting "shaky" and wants to go out looking for more victims. That night, Martin travels to a rough crime-ridden area of Pittsburgh and attacks two derelicts in a alley, injecting them with narcotics. He kills one of them by silting the bum's wrist and drinking his blood. Martin is about to kill the second one when a police car shows up and gives chase. Martin narrowly escapes during a long chase on foot which leads from the garbage strew streets and through a local store. Martin runs into an old warehouse where a drug deal is going down. A shootout between the two cops and the three thugs begins where all of them are killed, leaving Martin as the sole survivor who casually walks away from the carnage.
One day, Martin finds Mrs. Santini dead in her bathtub, after she had slit her writs with a razor blade. Martin anonymously calls the police to report the body and leaves. He phones the radio show host one final time to say that he really doesn't need friends or people to talk to for he is his own person. But when Cuda learns about Mrs. Santini's suicide, is mistakenly thinks Martin killed her and made it look like a suicide as he's done before. Cuda walks into Martin's room while he is asleep and kills him by hammering a wooden stake through Martin's heart.
Cuda buries Martin's body in his back garden, while over the closing credits various voices from people are heard talking to the radio show host asking the whereabouts of "the Count".
依然是导演非常擅长的对于新闻事件中边缘人物的延伸，但很奇怪的是同为东亚文化圈，但反而没有另一部合拍片《真相》来得更是枝，故事及内核上接近《小偷家族》，套路上又有点《东京教父》，但基本上都全方位败阵，感觉还是会有点水土不服。剧本算是比较完整，但线索过多且略显功能性，特别是两个警察的角色，而且人物的转变也显得欠缺说服力，过于圆满的结局也让整个事件的批判性有所削弱。不过依然有着导演特有的闪光点，裴斗娜车窗上落花，最后车里的合照，最喜欢洗车那场戏，一个小小的意外让这个“家”有了羁绊，当然那句最重要的台词，虽然说之前就有预感，但在有防备的情况下依然破防。“谢谢你出生在这个世界”。7.3
唯一的亮点是海进这个角色，演技和一些情节会让我眼前一亮
心太软家族全员自投罗网，羽星长大写作文是不愁素材了，为没说出“孩子是你在这个世界上唯一的亲人了，你可要振作起来”加一星
是枝裕和热衷于组建临时家庭…但这组有点塑料味…当然，也有一贯平淡中突然惊雷戳中泪点的小温馨…探讨领养与贩卖的边界，有需求就有市场，不是法定程序太苛刻谁会去花重金买…母亲亲自当人贩算代孕了吗？这么负责的掮客现实中又怎会存在，警察的执法方式真的ok？
七分
作為是枝的電影應該是後段那檔。依然是細膩的，演員們也恰如其分，包括電影新秀的李知恩。宋康昊演這角色可說是信手捻來了吧。但整體有如一個童話繪本，用過度溫情的畫筆掩蓋了現實斑駁的底色...剛好最近美國墮胎權議題沸騰，這部片看著也是有點尷尬，我想，他大概是太理想主義了吧...謝謝你的出生，但沒有羽星幸運的那些被拋棄的孩子願意經歷這些嗎?
#2022 München Filmfest
是枝裕和大概是我看过的最喜欢描述亲缘和家庭的导演了，有没有生命是不该出生的？是否一定要血亲养育？这样一个随便死了就死了的时代，本片未免过于美好和天真了，没有人是恶的，每一个微小的生命都被认真对待，被伤害了也在努力原谅，如果这世界真如此该多好。
不知点在哪里，也不知宋为什么拿影帝。这届戛纳真的是乱评到荒唐。
某一瞬间，仿佛在看《小偷家族》。经历了一段迷乱之后，是枝裕和在这部作品里拾回了一些初心。
“不是被抛弃的孩子，而是被守住的孩子” 虽然是韩国电影，但内里涌动的是枝裕和信奉的日式温情，淡化了身份标签，所有人回归到“父亲”“母亲”“孩子”这样最初的角色；稀释了情节冲突，重在陌生人之间跨越血缘的情感联结。临时重组的五口之家，一场意外迭生的行程，是逃亡是旅行也是另一种抵达。
浮于表面的情绪推动和煽情，人物结构有些松散，太过童话但没达到童话的目的，天真但没挖掘到天真的源泉；空镜和远景很棒
再有，就算女主如警察所说，主动自首刑期短还能减刑，但依旧无法改变杀人入狱过的事实。作为一个单亲妈妈，未来的生活是很不乐观的。
套路化的是枝裕和....这样对比的话，《真相》好太多了吧，当年没进戛纳太可惜了
不过是枝裕和拍美女太漂亮了，三个美女都拍得好美，iu和姜栋元也好好嗑😋。
感觉还是得给韩国导演拍吧。剧情线有点跳啊。远不如小偷家族了。虽然很像的风格。。。。。
完全看不到是枝裕和的影子…姜东元永远给我是《那小子真帅》里的样子
和小偷家族还是有点类似的，都是一群没有血缘关系的人像家人一样生活在一起，但整体水平还是要比小偷家族差一点
那段“感谢你出生”很喜欢，tracy chapman说，一个歌手一生唱的都是同一首歌。是枝裕和一辈子的也是同一部电影吧
浮于表面的情绪推动和煽情，人物结构有些松散，太过童话但没达到童话的目的，天真但没挖掘到天真的源泉；空镜和远景很棒
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