mel lee

3.5 stars! I found the film fatiguing as well as healing and restorative, as someone well familiar with immigration as a child, and having a childhood love return to me 25 years after separation, then to be lost to me again. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but I did at the end. Want to point out the only place in the film where artistry potential got me— otherwise I was really tired of tropeish, inhibited dialogue on a timeline and autobiographical details that seemed to exactly match the director’s (I googled during the film, as I was so bored) so as to seem like she was putting us through her own therapy (fantasy dialogue with a native country compatriot who essentially loves unconditionally and “gives blessing” to the immigrant to have ever left in the first place …. Without ever showing us the actual pain of immigrant identity, which is a split self, often toggling guilt and defiance, abandoning and abandonment). SPOILERS Was it clever or a continuity mistake? Nora writes her name on the wall at the writer’s retreat as 2012 (where she meets the future husband, the Jewish New Yorker). She leaves Korea at age 12; she speaks with Hae Sung again 12 years later, so they are 24 (verified later in convo when HS says to the husband that he was 24 in military). Which means Nora is in NYC for grad school (to any person who watched who was confused by that). Then apparently Nora and HS don’t speak again for 12 more years; Nora was married for 7 years when he finally comes to NY, which means she married at 31 (not at all early, as indicated by minor characters in the script), and they are 36 in this reunion. And, to be picky, 2012 + “12 years later” = 2024. They were walking in DUMBO under the bridge like some tourism for falling in love/confused feelings in NYC (errrr …. And yes, been there done that) when my brain figured that out, and it made me distracted, if not angry. Seriously? Alllll this ambiguity, and now you’re telling me an A24 production didn’t have a continuity editor?? Then, the penultimate scene. Hae Sung’s parting line. So over the top poetic, and yet, believably so (the whole traditional male role play thing, for those who don’t know Asian culture in Asia, was to me a bit dated but also, for our age group (I’m 6 years older than the director), probably correct. Also, processing traditional role play and expectations especially when it comes to love and marriage versus modern choice-making is a big deal as an immigrant). Hae Sung suggests, What if we are now in the past? And somewhere our future selves are already somehow in karmic connection, being related? Nora says, I don’t know. Has Sung says, I don’t know. (This is appropriate dialogue for a Buddhist inspired film, I suppose). So wait …. So did the writer/director intend for this film released in 2023 to be set in 2024? Are we supposed to come away realizing the nostalgia that holds us, regardless whether or not it holds us back, is always already at play in the future? Are we meant to realize us in this very moment now is already the future’s past?? I prefer walking away thinking about this philosophically. I’m off-put knowing that 90% of the audience likely didn’t put that together because the sentimentality of missing a love/the past and the closure the scene otherwise offered was so palatable. I’d like to think teasing us with a prolonged farewell ‘will they kiss?!’ scene, such a cliché I had to turn away, was actually intended to mess with our expectations instead. Making me dissatisfied during the film and having to use my brain after, well, that does make it arthouse so for that, almost 4 stars!

Meh— overblown, like Corden’s acting. Don’t get me wrong, I have in the past adored James Corden’s work and late night show, despite the recent controversies. But this was written by a friend of Corden’s, and his character’s name is Jamie. C’mon. No one else casted has this parallel. I really needed him to create a believable character, not another version of himself playacting with comedic approaches we’ve seen employed throughout his LLShow tenure. Melia Kreiling was so blasé and baseless, the character arc towards the final plot twist, from both of them, just felt like they were wrapping up threads and wasting the opportunity of what mindfuck you realize everyone’s supposed to have been on. The comedy and surrealist elements feel forced — only after reading reviews did I understand this was written by a playwright and thus likely had different vision more suitable for the stage. I’ll admit I skimmed past most of the subplot of characters Leu and Jeff, Jamie’s sister and brother-in-law/best friend, because it was clearly a whole other storyline that I could not get interested in because the idea that spouses cheat on each other, and what incredulous things they do, say, think and feel when they suspect or know they do, is so totally known already and uninteresting and this show of unlikeable people adds nothing to that. Go watch Black Butterflies on Netflix (my vote for original French audio w subtitles, not dubbed!) for some motivated cheating with complex humanistic themes and twists of the absurd! (A tip I got from another person’s disappointed Google review of AppleTV’s Severance, thank you Carolyn J whoever you are, that was great!)