Starting this new year with a film that I knew nothing about before watching it has been a genuine joy and surprise. I was motivated by falling down a rabbit-hole that should have started last year, when Kim Go-eun delivered her unforgettable performance in Pamyo, but it’s taken until her appearance in the thriller series The Price of Confession to want to dive into a filmography defined by interesting choices.
Daedosiui sarangbeob is about two outsiders who find each other and share a life through their twenties and early thirties. In the beginning, there is loneliness: Heung-soo’s (Steve Noh, Pachinko) hiding and isolation because he is afraid to come out as gay in a society that is still deeply homophobic, to a mother who has devoted herself to Church after catching him with another boy, and Jae-hee’s (Kim Go-eun) solitude because she is ostracised as a weirdo, mainly for not confirming to preconceived notions about how she is meant to act as a woman. When Jae-hee first notices Heung-soo, it feels like she is lit up by the mutual recognition of having something in common. They become friends – as the years pass, they move in together, are the closest relationship each of them has in their life, even as their diverging ideas about romance cause chaos. Closeted Heung-soo doesn’t allow himself love even when it persistently shows up in his life, fearing what it would mean to commit, or to have to reveal himself to the world. Jae-hee falls into relationships with men who inevitably fall on a spectrum from ridiculous to useless to violently jealous, never really conceding that she deserves so much better because she’s been told too often that she doesn’t. Heung-soo is arrested in his career because he doesn’t commit there either – he’s been writing forever but he seems incapable of making choices that aren’t prescribed for him. Jae-hee lands in an office job where she is undervalued and suffers from misogynistic power structures.
The film is carried by their love and care for each other: a relationship that grows as they do. Noh and Kim Go-eun have the kind of undeniable chemistry that feels magical on screen – Jae-hee’s fearlessness and energy shine even more against Heung-soo’s reservedness and restraint. This is a beautifully filmed and acted portrait of friendship.
2024, directed by Eon-hee Lee, starring Kim Go-eun, Steve Sanghyun Noh, Kim Chae-eun, Kwak Dong-yeon, Jang Hye-jin.
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