INT. BIRD LIBRARY - STUDY CARREL, HEADPHONES - TUESDAY NIGHT
Na Young and Hae Sung are twelve and inseparable in Seoul when her family emigrates to Canada. Twelve years later they reconnect over video calls. Twelve years after that, Hae Sung flies to New York, where Na Young now goes by Nora and is married to an American writer named Arthur.
In-yeon
Nora explains a Korean idea called in-yeon. If two strangers brush sleeves on the street, it means they crossed paths in many past lives. Celine Song builds the whole movie around it. Nothing happens in the usual dramatic sense. The drama is in what these three people decide not to say.
The drama is in what these three people decide not to say.
The bar scene
The film opens on three people at a bar, seen from across the room by strangers trying to guess how they know each other. Near the end we come back to that bar and finally hear the conversation. Nora and Hae Sung speak Korean. Arthur, sitting right beside them, cannot follow it. Song frames him so that he is in the shot and outside the conversation at the same time.
Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro do some of their best work in this movie while saying very little.
Who it is for
Anyone who has moved far from where they grew up will feel this one. Bring tissues for the last five minutes.