Possible Love
Lee Chang-dong’s “Possible Love” makes as strong a case as I’ve seen from a movie for sticking with a movie that doesn’t really engage you at first. This was a tricky watch. At 164 minutes, it’s one of the longer movies I’ve watched this year, and in the beginning, I’ll be honest that I felt it. And then, the film flips a switch, and I was immediately in tune with it. That doesn’t completely mean the first half of relative tedium was forgiven completely, but that the film really found its way into my emotions, and I was left all aboard with its story.
This is the first of Lee Chang-dong’s films I’ve seen, and it’s fair to say his work might be an acquired taste. The narrative he and co-writer Jungmi Oh goes from point A to point B, but there’s a lot of work to get there. The film starts by focusing on a family- the father, Choi Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu); the wife, Ahn Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), and their son, Cheol (Jung Seol). Ho-seok has been out of work since the automaker firm he worked at, SP Heavy Industries, broke up a strike by the factory’s union workers, who rejected layoffs. It’s been two years, and Ho-seok has had a rough go finding work, as well as maintaining his mental health after the police raid that broke up the strike killed several friends, both directly and after the fact. The family is attending the funeral of one of Ho-seok’s coworkers when they meet a documentarian, Lee Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeong) and her wealthy husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung). Ye-ji is out to make a documentary about workers like Ho-seok. Getting Ho-seok to agree, however, is going to be a chore.
As the film starts, the dynamics between Ho-seok and Mi-ok, and Mi-ok and Ye-ji, are the most fascinating to following. Feeling the distance between the married couple, and the connection between the two women- from very different classes, but seemingly with like-minded pursuits- is where “Possible Love” held my attention early on. And then, as it delved deeper and deeper into the making of the documentary- of which Ho-seok was still uneasy about taking part in- the movie clicked, as we see so many different people discuss their experiences with SP Heavy, and other jobs. Eventually, Ho-seok agrees to take part when their family joins Ye-ji and Sang-woo on a weekend trip to a family home by the beach. And then, we get the extent of Ho-seok’s pain, and Kyung-gu’s performance hits another level. The main four performances are all terrific, especially as it becomes abundantly clear that this quartet of adults are not friends, and one pair is more interested in exploiting the other. The final moments are beautiful as the film reaches its thoughtful, sometimes painful conclusions about these individuals. “Possible Love” may not have made for an easy sit to start, but it really rewarded my patience by the end. It’s worth a watch.
