“A normal family“Starts with a family’s death, but not the one you can expect. Before his film turns his attention to the family referred to with their title, director How Jin-Ho The gate was torn out with a case of being refused that ends in murder. Or maybe not, if the lawyer who defends the driver in question has his way.
A man is dead and his eight-year-old daughter is critically injured in the hospital, but self-interested criminal lawyer Jae-Wan (“Kill Boksoon’s” Sol Kyung-Gu) is more concerned about saving the rich CEO’s son who is responsible for the murder. At the same time, the lawyer’s younger brother, Doctor Jae-Gyu (“Arthdal Chronicles” Jang Dong-Gun), works tirelessly to save the victim’s daughter at a nearby hospital.
The couple could not be more different at first, a contrast that becomes sharper during meals they share with their wives and each other in a nice restaurant every month. It is on one of these somewhat silent business that the brothers realize that they are both actually involved in each other’s cases, with one who asks the other to do “the right thing.” But like How Jin-Ho‘S script (which he worked with with “monster” co-author Park Eun-Kyo), expertly, what can be considered “right” can change in a moment when personal feelings are affected.
Because while the adults (pretend) enjoy a nice dining experience together, their teenage children-jae-wan’s daughter, Hye-Yoon (Hong Ye-Ji) and Jae-Gyu’s younger son, Yang Si-Ho (Kim Jung-Chul) reveal to be the type of people who will soon need to get a thing.
The seeds are sown early when Si-Ho squash a bug with his finger and again shortly after when he and his cousin secretly look at pictures of that opening accident and cheer on the driver as if watching a live stream of “Gta v. “They practically break out the popcorn, overjoyed at the sight of a man who loses control at the expense of another losing his life.
While their parents bicker over the value of life, Si-Ho and HYE-Yoon prove that it means nothing to them when they brutally attack a homeless man for kick on their way home from a party. It is an unforgivable act, one that they almost escape if not for a hidden CCTV camera who thinks of Austrian Author Michael Haneke. Like him, how Jin-Ho is concerned about the fragility in a moral position and how mercury these not so concrete perceptions about right and wrong can be when evil sleeps just down into the corridor.
In that light, “A normal family“Is far from the director’s previous works, often characterized as a sweet romantic like” A fine spring day “(2001),” Happiness “(2007) and” A good rain knows “(2009). Here is how Jin-Ho strips romance away completely in favor of something far-shining, a worldview that is so depressed as it is. Establishment, but there is no black and white with the moral space they occupy.
It is in this mobility where “a normal family” thrives, even if the family does not, especially in the three dinners that form the centerpiece through which each tension wire is densely wrapped. Said tension that swims at first, and not just between siblings.
Sun Kyung-Gu and Jang Dong-Gun are both spectacular, which gives life for decades of brotherly annoyance with just a cut tone or gaze. But it is wives, played by Kim He-Ae and Claudia Kim, who impress most with the sensitive games they play. Kims Ji-Su is the lawyer’s much younger trophy wife as Hee-Aes Yeon-Kyung is very pleased to cruelly tease- “Why is it this Woman present during our family meeting? ” – As stock of annoyance and envy dance between the two.
Every expression and a subtle change in the body language is fascinating to look at, and the same goes for the dinners themselves where stereotypes crack and then crumble in front of our eyes when four parents face an impossible choice (“You claim innocence for criminals but you will report your own child?”). The tempo is sometimes between these basic highlights, but the scenes connecting them remain a necessity, not only because they enrich the dinners with much needed context, but also because they help to distinguish the film from its source material to create something new and culturally specific.
Herman Koch’s original Dutch novel, entitled “The Dinner” in English, took place during just a riot meal. How Jin-Ho could easily have adopted the same way, but instead he extends the idea over several days and places to interrogate social principles from a clear Korean perspective where the difficulties with the CRAM school directly play into the violence.
With more space to work with, Hans and Park Eun-Kyos script a rhythmic push-and-pull between all the parties involved and dissects the rich lives with a sharp precision. It is impossible to escape the luminous way of privilege that turns the obligation and broker guilt within the framework of the high society and those who benefit from it. Can life be purchased? Can good deeds tip the scale? And how responsible are we as parents for the actions from the ones we raise?
It is affordable that a story adapted three times already by different American and European filmmakers can remain as unpredictable as it does here, and the same applies to its refusal to provide simple answers. The threat of violence even hangs the most silences, and – some fuzzy CGI animals aside – the film’s grip on the disturbing undercurrent is convincing all the time. That is why the end works so well, a sudden climate that is dark poetic and anything but normal.
Rating: B.
Room 8 movies release “A Normal Family” in NYC & LA Friday 25 April.
Want to keep you updated on IndieWire’s movie Reviews And critical thoughts? Subscribe here To our recently launched newsletter, in review by David Ehrlich, where our main film critic and Head Review’s editor rounds off the best new reviews and streaming choices along with some exclusive Musings – all only available for subscribers.
