Skeletons in the Closet is a surprisingly good comedy about a middle class South Korean family who are all in a rut in their lives. Chun Ho-Jin is the father, an english teacher at a local high school who no longer makes love to his wife (Moon He-Kyung), and takes her for granted. He also has an unemployed sister in law (Kim Hye-Soo) comic book author who leeches off of them, and a son (Yu A-In) and daughter who both are just getting by in the same school that he teaches. The son is madly in love with another student (Jeung Yo-Mi), a girl who practices ballet and is a prostitute. One evening Mr. Shim sees a prostate body of a young woman in the subway. It is Jeung Yo-Mi, and there is a lot of blood between her legs. He picks her up and is going to take her to the hospital, but she begs him to take her to a motel and get some hygenic stuff so treat her wound, and he does. Together they stay overnight, Mr. Shim feeling uneasy as he knows the implications of an older man with a young girl in a motel. But nothing happens between the two of them -- until the cell phone, which Mr. Shim has confiscated from a student who was text messaging in class, is returned, and a video is discovered on the phone, of him and the student in bed. It is placed on the internet, on a Youtube like site, and a scandal erupts. The Shim family falls prey to the social pressures of the scandal. Mrs. Shim, in the meantime, is looking for some value after being treated as a slave by her family. She develops a crush on a young man who runs a karaoke bar, and is a promoter for a local coffee firm. He talks her into going to a retreat at a coffee company, which is essentially a recruiting camp. At first she is crushed that she wasn't going on a date with the young man; however, she finds some value in the process and impresses her family with her new coffeemaker (which works during a power outage and plays music), and a revived spiritual confidence in herself -- through coffee. The daughter lives in a dream world where she hates her family, is not particularly good looking, and writes a journal of her fantasies on her computer. The sister in law does nothing of importance except maintain a large comic book collection, writing stories and doing nothing for herself. She was coming out of a lousy relationship with a man who just plays around. All of them are shocked out of their hum drum existence with Mr. Shim's scandal. During a hot evening there is a blackout, and the family goes to the riverside, where the community has rigged a camp where they will watch a soccer game on power generators. People eat and generally have a good time, until the Shims are confronted by a neighboring family, who are outraged that their poodle was violated by the Shim's family dog. A fight breaks out, and the Shims unite to fight the neighbors and all the scandal and bad vibes that have been hanging over them. They run back home in separate paths, the daughter commenting through a voice over that this was the first time ever that she had so wanted to be back home. The scandal blows over, and Mr. Shim continues to be a teacher. The sister in law resumes a career as a writer, Mrs Shim is given more respect and the two children clean up their act. There has been a run of really bland or awful Korean comedies lately. This is an exception. Director Chung Yoon-chul (Marathon) has put together a tight and atypical comedy of a South Korean family with problems. There are no heart tugging moments or overwrought sappy drama. It is filmed in a style similar to a film like the Royal Tennabaums, a no nonsense approach to the subject matter that places emphasis on the characters and not style. The outdoor fight scene is the funniest and best part of the film, as it is where the Shims' finally deal with all their problems by asserting themselves for the first time. Shim's Family is a clever look at one modern family, warts and all, and finds the heart and pulse that keeps them united. Recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment