Return to Seoul

When I saw the trailer for Return to Seoul, I thought it sounded like something my nephew would enjoy so I took him to see it last night.  We both found this complex exploration of one young woman's search for self to be incredibly thought-provoking.  Frederique "Freddie" Benoit (Ji-Min Park), a 25-year-old Korean woman who was adopted by a French couple as a baby, spontaneously decides to travel to Seoul when her flight to Tokyo is canceled.  She tells two new acquaintances that she is not there specifically to find her biological parents but she eventually ends up at the Hammond Adoption Agency and has them contact her mother and father to see if they will respond to her request to meet.  Her father (Oh Kwang-rok) responds immediately but, when she visits him and his family, she is repulsed by his emotional professions of guilt over abandoning her and she viciously rejects his pleas for her to move to Korea and live with him.  She returns several more times to Korea but doesn't attempt to learn the language or understand the culture, pushes everyone who tries to form a relationship with her away, and engages in reckless and self-destructive behavior.  It takes seven more years for her mother (Cho-woo Choi) to agree to a meeting when she is back in Korea on a business trip and, while they have an emotional reunion, Freddie refuses to communicate with her further.  She is clearly looking for an identity but she doesn't feel at home in either France or Korea, doesn't belong with her adoptive or biological families, and doesn't stay with any of the men or women she hooks up with.  It is only when we see her alone in an unknown location that she seems to be at peace.  Ji-Min Park, in her debut, gives an absolutely phenomenal performance because, even though her character is very unlikable, you simply cannot look away from her because of her chaotic energy, especially in a five minute scene where she dances with abandon to avoid her feelings.  I really loved the use of music in this movie because, in different scenes, Freddie uses music to bond with people, to escape from stressful situations, and, ultimately, to find herself (it features a fantastic soundtrack).  When she has no other label for herself, she becomes a musician.  I also really enjoyed the ambiguity in the narrative, particularly when things get lost in translation from French to Korean, and it is so interesting to speculate about what happens to Freddie next (my nephew and I had a very spirited discussion about this afterwards) because there are no easy answers about this kind of trauma.  The themes of identity really resonated with me (and my nephew) for lots of reasons and I highly recommend seeking this out!

A Good Person

The second movie in my double feature at the Broadway last night was A Good Person and, even though the movie itself is a little uneven, the performances make it worth a watch.  Allison (Florence Pugh) is happily engaged to Nathan (Chinaza Uche) and is successful in her career but her world is destroyed when the car she is driving is involved in an accident which kills Nathan's sister Molly (Nichelle Hines) and her husband Jason (Toby Onwumere) and leaves their daughter Ryan (Celeste O'Connor) an orphan.  One year later, Allison's life is in a downward spiral after she ends her engagement and becomes addicted to the Oxycontin prescribed for her injuries.  When she finally decides to get sober, she attends an AA meeting where she encounters Molly and Nathan's father Daniel (Morgan Freeman), a recovering alcoholic who is struggling with the responsibility of raising his granddaughter and fears a relapse.  Both Nathan and Ryan offer her a way forward through their unlikely friendship but it is only when she is able to forgive herself that she can deal with her trauma, guilt, and addiction.  There is an incredibly heavy-handed metaphor involving model trains with figurines that can be controlled unlike real people who make a mess of their lives and this sets the tone for what is to come.  The themes are overly familiar, the plot sometimes descends into melodrama (one scene in particular in the third act is completely overwrought), and the runtime is definitely too long (I thought it was over three different times only to have another coda appear) but both Pugh and Freeman give unbelievably affecting performances (especially when they are interacting with each other).  Molly Shannon brings a lot of pathos as a mother who doesn't know how to help her daughter and Alex Wolff has a short scene as Allison's former classmate that is probably my favorite in the whole movie.  I would recommend this but it is definitely one you can wait to see when it streams.

The Lost King

Last night I decided on a double feature at the Broadway and I started with The Lost King which is incredibly charming.  After missing out on a promotion because she suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome, Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins) attends a production of Richard III and decides that he was unfairly maligned by Shakespeare because he had a disability.  She identifies with Richard, as someone who also feels misunderstood, so she reads every biography she can find and joins a Richard III Society (there is a hilarious scene where one of the members says she looks too normal to want to join them).  She also begins seeing an apparition of Richard (Harry Lloyd) which spurs her on. When she decides to search for his missing remains, which have been lost for over 500 years, her ex-husband John (Steve Coogan) is concerned, a University of Leicester archaeologist named Richard Buckley (Mark Addy) is skeptical, and the University of Leicester registrar Richard Taylor (Lee Ingleby) is dismissive, but despite all of these obstacles she perseveres and is ultimately successful.  This is based on a true story (with a little magical realism thrown in for good measure) and the details about the search for Richard are compelling but I also really appreciated the journey Langley takes to assert her worth against all odds.  Hawkins is absolutely delightful in the role and gives a warm and spirited performance worth cheering for (many in my crowded theater laughed and cheered throughout).  This fun and lighthearted movie about a quirky British underdog who is unwilling to give up reminded me of Dream Horse, The Duke, and The Phantom of the Open and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I recommend seeking this out when you have a free afternoon.

Thierry Fischer Conducts Bruckner 5

Last night's Utah Symphony concert was really exciting because Maestro Thierry Fischer was back on the podium (for the first of his final four appearances as music director of the symphony) and he led the orchestra in a brilliant performance of Symphony No. 5 by Anton Bruckner.  I had never heard this piece before but it was very dramatic, to say the least, and I loved it!  The first movement begins very softly and slowly and then builds and builds into a powerful conclusion.  The second movement features a plaintive theme introduced by a solo oboe and then continues with variations by the strings, which are incredibly beautiful, and by the brass.  The third movement alternates between a menacing theme and a slow pastoral theme and they compete for dominance and then kind of meld together.  The opening notes of the fourth movement mirror those of the first and then there is a jaunty theme played by the solo clarinet (which I absolutely loved) that is echoed by the strings and then becomes a fugue where the instruments seem to be chasing each other.  The movement concludes with the repetition of all of the various themes found throughout the piece and it was absolutely epic!  I really loved the emotion and, even though I am not as knowledgeable about the structure of music as I would like to be, I enjoyed the fact that I could recognize all the themes that were being repeated!  This is the only piece on the program (it is 76 minutes long) and it will be performed again tonight (go here for tickets).

John Wick: Chapter 4

I really love the John Wick franchise because the stakes keep getting higher and the action sequences keep getting more exhilarating with each movie.  That is especially true of the latest installment John Wick: Chapter 4, which I saw in IMAX last night, because I was on the edge of my seat, holding my breath, and cheering out loud!  After John Wick (Keanu Reeves) kills the Elder (George Georgiou), the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), acting under the auspices of the High Table, targets the New York and Osaka Continentals as well as their mangers, Winston Scott (Ian McShane) and Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada), and concierges Charon (Lance Reddick) and Akira (Rina Sawayama), respectively, for aiding him.  The Marquis also compels Caine (Donnie Yen), a blind assassin and old friend of Wick's, to come out of retirement and kill him and he offers a contract to a bounty hunter known as the Tracker (Shamier Anderson).  Wick eventually finds an archaic way to end his obligation to the High Table but first he must reconnect with the Ruska Roma crime syndicate and survive a $40 million bounty placed on his head.  The action sequences are absolutely amazing with spectacular set pieces that are intense and unrelenting!  The fight choreography is brilliant with ingenious and visually stunning shot compositions, particularly a fight against dozens of assassins with just a pair of nunchucks in between glass display cases, hand to hand combat while dodging groups of dancers in a neon-lit nightclub, a continuous overhead shot involving dragon's breath ammunition, an epic car chase in the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe, and another fight against dozens of assassins on the 222 stairs leading to the Sacre-Coeur Basilica.  In fact, the action in the final act might be the best I've ever seen and I loved it!  Reeves gives his best performance in the franchise, in my opinion, because Wick must finally face the consequences of his actions in a very visceral way but Skarsgard is perfect as a petulant villain and Yen almost steals the show (one particular line delivery made my audience laugh out loud).  I was also really impressed with Sawayama because she holds her own in a great fight sequence.  Much has been made of the nearly three hour runtime but I didn't feel it at all and some might not like the final resolution but, if this is indeed the last movie in the franchise, I think it is really the only way Wick's character arc could have ended.  I had so much fun watching this and, it you are a fan of the franchise, I think you will be blown away!