Summary
A young woman, played by Greta Lee, loses touch with her childhood friend, played by Teo Yoo, after her family immigrate to America but then catches up with him again years later.
I think this film is very much an acquired taste, one for which I never adapted. I went into this film with high expectations after hearing a lot of good festival and early screenings buzz, but I just found myself lost with the film. It never seems to catch its tone between a dark comedy, a tragedy and a sort of reverse rom-com and as such you aren’t quite sure how to respond to things as they happen. In the final section of the film the audience wants Lee to cheat and to start up a relationship with Yoo but she doesn’t and instead stays with her husband in tears, is that supposed to be a happy ending as she didn’t break her relationship or is it supposed to be a personal tragedy for her as the happiness in her life fades away and she is left with mediocrity.
As you can probably tell the film itself is very cerebral, it aims to be a meditation on life, love and what it means to outgrow people, but more often than not it comes off as pretentious and thinking it is much deeper than it actually is. Also, and this may be a me thing, but it is also incredibly cringe at times, once you see it you’ll know what I mean.
Overall, depressing and pretentious.
2/5
Pros.
The emotion mostly lands
It has its moments
Cons.
It is depressing
It is pretentious
It has deep and systematic pacing issues
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