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".
老乌口述与索菲亚罗兰德韵事，我的心情就和在一旁听着的Gloria一样，一时不知道是真的还是假的，该哭还是该笑。果然都是满嘴跑火车的生物群体啊！
（老乌此前为我所知的角色只有林冲）。
优点很明显：时髦、舒服、立意好、三个女演员光彩熠熠；但缺点也很明显：故事和主题都太散，看到老乌死了以后就在想不会就这么结束了吧还什么都没讲呢，虽然最后一段落脚在爱情上，但总觉得太弱太淡了
没去什么电影节就直接上映挺可惜的，但是想想，这片子也没法翻译啊。某些批评用现实主义要求这么个“洋气”的片子，不是蠢就是坏吧。喜剧做得不错，各种层面也确实讨喜，话虽然实在太密（是在找伍迪艾伦吗？），不过细节实在是用足了（以微信界面为最了），单场戏其实论写论表演得都挺不错的。不过呢，连起来看就各种拧巴了。我猜这也是短视频时代的电影代表吧。片子核心大梗是不成立的，因为费里尼的《爱情神话》片名可从来不是Myth of Love啊（所以中间那个投影看得到底是什么鬼？）。最后，这片子声音是怎么回事儿？没做完？
有多好看呢？就是我封这是我2021最喜欢的华语电影！恨不得明年奥斯卡最佳外语片也能有这部一席之地的那种棒！终于有人能把中年人的爱情讲的这么平实有趣不猎奇还带着暖暖的浪漫！
对我来说就是五颗星，全程日常，却没有一句废话。每个人物都那么鲜活，笑中带泪。
看得出导演努力地想把这关于上海人市井小资生活的电影上升到某种基调，但是很抱歉俗到家了，若是真诚地拍市井烟火也可以拍出好电影的，不知道为什么非得把自己往文艺上硬凑，压根不是这块料，结果生活不生活想搞深刻然而影片那种塑料平庸的质感又喷屏而出，尤其是把徐峥这个角色设定成一个画家也别扭至极，活脱脱一工厂老板味道，真的辱画家了，整部电影叨絮片面又刻意，还有背景音乐也是一通强行乱插。
这个时代需要的女性视角。“没有造过反的女人一生不完整” 愿有更多的女性可以有“造反”的勇气。
音乐也是，宁波话歌曲虽然惊艳，但不太上海。英语歌很不正宗，网红店爱用的，哎败笔。
让我感觉别扭的地方是，导演既想歌颂爱情，又迷恋于一种温馨的“同层文化景观”。——但爱情之所以能成为神话，在于它是一种颠覆性的情感，能跨越难以逾越的障碍（通常表现为阶层障碍）。——就好像，导演既要向费里尼致敬，又要在片尾用上海小吃揶揄大师的阳春白雪。和其他经典的文艺片一样，费里尼的《爱情神话》的精彩在于其极端的创造性实践（“一部关于古罗马的科幻片”），这种艺术密度往往会遭到普通观众的拒绝或嘲笑。所以，本片结尾其实是在用“日常生活最伟大”的主流论调否认了前面挖空心思营造（我更愿称之为“想象”）出来的上海文化格调，也否认了超越世俗而存在的爱情。
取名叫友情神话还差不多 没有一个角色过的是“主流”/虚假伪善的生活 充分展示了没有直男癌没有傻逼中国传统文化糟粕的生活就已经多么好 即使没有爱情没有神话
能把‘一把年纪轧姘头’的市井故事讲得那么洋气，上海可以的。换个场景大概就是住纽约soho的大龄艺术家刷Tinder找date，约会要去off-Broadway看剧，然后一群人天台露台喝酒开派对的故事。
一个中年离异男，一会想搞画展，一会想睡中年离异女，一会给中年离异女带娃，一会想跟中年女大款胡搞，一会想掺和儿子的恋爱，一会被修鞋匠忽悠，一会被老妈不停的骂十三点，一会跟好朋友翻脸，最后好朋友死了，画展也办成了的故事。没有主线，人物混乱，没用的纸片人众多，内容全靠水词堆砌，拍摄去导演化，基本是个电视剧拍法，从头到尾也不知道到底要说什么，结尾还突然跳线到了男二号身上，男二号成了核心焦点，还拿索菲亚罗兰开了个李春平的玩笑，也不知道跟男一号有什么关系，十分莫名其妙。如果不是这些好演员，大概这个混乱叙事，这个电视剧拍法，结果可能不会像现在这么好。
人物是立不住的，故事结构是散的。为了金句而强行拼凑的情节，儿子线剪掉又如何，毫无影响。高跟鞋作为格里芬对剧情推动没起什么作用，就为了让马伊琍撒谎证明她是“好女人？”一个为了女儿缩在蜗居忍受母亲的中年单亲妈妈为什么要用这种方式证明她是“好女人？”索菲亚罗兰梗也很无聊，《大鱼》撒谎精模式，要前面足够荒诞，最后证明是真的，才有戏剧效果。更不要提里面错误百出的上海话台词了。
惊艳到了，这款电影没见过啊，整体叙事丝滑饱满，老乌的故事浅入深出，给人的联想留白含蓄有品有力，现实和故事似真似假交织发展，演员力道味道都炉火纯青升仙得道，所以你说他要讲什么道理呢，要我说什么道理也没讲，就讲了个故事，讲了一些平时我们接触不到又偶尔见到的人。这下徐峥的人设也要加分了，又会做饭又有租收的好男人，怎么能让人拒绝呢。
侠气欢喜个则结尾，情敌变同盟的三两男男女女望着银幕，透出的光洒落在身上。阿拉则不知不觉融入了电影里，成为被观看的角色，字幕悄无声息上升，简单自然又耐人寻味。白辛苦不辛苦，费里尼额老多电影，吾啊看伐懂~紫亿到伐？最后《爱情神话》校对和翻译：一额是红拂；一额是夜奔
2.5，想给那些“误会”上海的人浇盆冷水。前半段可以打3星，演员确实不错。但后面老乌这段莫名其妙，费里尼的爱情神话与片中人物的关联也没讲清楚。
8/10。看完后忍不住拍手称赞“灵足”！它的存在让中国电影有了新的可能性。全沪语的日常对话让上海风情在举手投足间肆意流淌，导演在致敬费里尼的过程中做得最好的一点就是拍活了一个城市。同时，它的笑点是高级的，女性形象再也不是固化的了，甚至男性形象都呈现出丰富性。每个演员都散发着魅力，三人美术馆的交锋戏让人拍案叫绝。市井与艺术、神话与日常，是可以相互融合、相互转化的。在真与假之间，我们寻着喷泉，睡倒在电影院，穿越大半个世界，构造出自己的爱情神话。
观看的时候，笑的神经的确有被调动，也呈现了近几年华语电影里松弛有加的人物形象，已算是相当奢侈的创作。但这种趣味性和地域的关系有多大，是存疑的。就像国际学校、混血儿、懂得Jimmy Choo的小皮匠……这些符号在多大程度上构成上海的特质，也是需要被讨论的。法租界成为一个容器，承载人们对城市的想象，在电影框架内构成一个过于简化却行之有效的逻辑。
对爱情内核的探讨也只是小资的隔靴搔痒，到底没谈出什么东西来，文青喜欢这个也能理解。
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