Nobody's Daughter Haewon

I got about 15-20 minutes into it before turning it off. The acting was truly terrible, and the whole thing was really off-putting. It's like they grabbed a somewhat-attractive young lady off the street and told her to act. Also the whole thing about how she should try out for Miss Korea ( random dialogue, not important to the plot )? Koreans would say she's far too fat, so nobody would ever say this to her in reality. This movie tried way too hard and failed really hard, and it could have been really good if not for the horrible acting. It completely failed to interest me despite the other reviews and the plot ( which I saw NONE of in that entire time ). I will definitely never try to watch this again, nor will I recommend this to any of my friends. Hell, I won't even recommend this to strangers either. Nobody should have to sit through a movie as contrived and boring as this one.

Emotions can be a tricky thing. And this movie is a prime example of that. Even more incredible if you consider the fact, with how little passion it is displayed, I guess to counter balance it. Obviously this will not have everyone yearning for it and will rightfully displease people too. It's hard to say, that you will be emotionally invested in the main character.

I actually think most will not. But that is another paradox of the movie, which makes it even more compelling to watch. The narrative wasn't that linear either and there is quite a lot of room for speculation or at least interpretation. You'll either like that or hate it of course. But you can't deny the movie having a strong core performance.

The two very different view points (up to this point) of the movie, that can be read here in the review section are testament to the fact, that the movie creates something that viewers react to (no matter their feelings about it).

The fourth film I've seen from director Hong Sang-soo. I didn't like the other three, so it comes as little surprise that I didn't like this one either. It's a pity, as NOBODY'S DAUGHTER HAEWON is the director's best-looking work so far, a film filled with picturesque locations. The colours look lush and vibrant in HD and the shooting style is better than ever. Plus Sang-soo has dropped that annoying vignette style so that a single storyline is told chronologically from beginning to end.

What a shame, then, that it's still so boring. Once again, Sang-soo explores the familiar themes of human relationships and romance, this time focusing on a student/teacher relationship. It's been done before and even the same actors are brought out again for another tired time-waster. NOBODY'S DAUGHTER HAEWON is a patience-testing film where absolutely nothing happens aside from some dull and uninteresting characters going around and bemoaning their fates. The only thing it has going for it is a nice piece of Beethoven music which is played throughout the production.

Jung Eun chae has recently stood out in her understated, emotionally powerful performance in Pachinko. Other roles she has had since this 2013 performance, including The King, haven't allowed much room for her to demonstrate her emotional range as an actor.

Haewon is deftly portrayed by Jung as a young woman struggling to understand and become herself in a culture where women are considered objects of beauty and passion, but often no more. Jung masterfully shows just how vulnerable women are to men's predictable tactics for drawing women into relationships that may be self-serving on the men's part. Her former lover/director Lee treats her to a toxic mixture of verbal abuse, erotic and emotional manipulation, and nostalgia, all because he's incapable of resolving his own misery. He's in the relationship for mostly selfish reasons and shows little to no regard for her as a person.

Haewon struggles with the consequences of her beauty, which include unwanted interest from too many men. She has trouble disabusing some men of their folly because, like so many women, she has been socialized to aspire to being desired by others--not so much to conquer others so much as to be validated in her "true" femininity. Women are brainwashed to feel they should WANT to be objects of desire.

Haewon is no fool, however. She fights back at director Lee, whose misery causes him to twist the facts of their breakup. At the same time that Haewon understands the power of her allure, she is still unable to resist the flattering attentions of men, to the point that she would entertain the fantasy of moving to the United States to be with an older man (played by director Hong) whom she has met just in passing.

Haewon remains vulnerable to the manipulative mind games women must contend with in order to acknowledge self-worth that is not grounded in men's appreciation of them. The opening scenes depicting her farewell to her mother set the stage for appreciating a young woman who is a bit of a dreamer and how left on her own to navigate her future.

I saw this film at the Berlinale 2013 film festival, where it was part of the official Competition. What we saw happening was interesting enough to keep us awake all the time, but the narrative was overly complex and particularly the who-is-who was not always easy to follow. Old intimate relationships got easily mixed up with new ones, thereby also crossing age gaps and other lines that ought to be respected.

This is the case for instance with one of her professors, which relationship should be a no-go area for more reasons than age difference alone. She had an abundance of intimate relationships in the recent past, all of them (literal quote) "going all the way through" (free translation: slept together). Her promiscuity is something her friends frown upon, especially where it involves director Lee. That relationship broke up a year ago, but both still have troubles letting it go.

Her sudden meeting with a professor from abroad, her pondering about leaving the country with him (in spite of knowing him only from that occasion), even mentioning these rash future plans later on against some of her friends, all of this is getting me so far as to take the hint from the synopsis on the festival website, saying that it all of this may be something she is dreaming, and nothing more than that. We see her a few times asleep in broad daylight, like in the library, at moments not fitting in the story line.

All in all, I see no reason to recommend this film. It is easy to sit through, and I had little reason to consult my watch. That is not my problem with it. However, none of the characters appearing in this movie suffice to get us viewers emotionally involved. It's all a bit abstract and remote what we see happening. The main character is also not very serious about her study, and wanders around while having love affair after love affair, so it seems.