Mother

City Paper Grade: A-

by Shaun Brady

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Published: Mar 17, 2010

MOMMIE DEAREST: Kim Hye-Ja plays the titular fiercely loyal matriarch in Bong Joon-ho's Mother.

[City Paper Grade: A- ]

South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's last film, the gleefully genre-defying The Host, could fairly but unsatisfyingly be called a monster movie. Bong didn't subvert genre conventions so much as focus his attention elsewhere to reveal more than typically fits within such a film. Mother plays similar tricks with a gritty policier, which also becomes a slapstick comedy, and both a melo- and psycho-drama without ever conceding its whodunit identity.

The mystery of who killed the schoolgirl found draped over the roof of an abandoned building in a small village struggles for attention with another, perhaps deeper mystery: the relationship between the title character, played with an unsparing fierceness by Kim Hye-Ja, and her Beatle-haired, mentally disabled 27-year-old son, Do-joon (Won Bin). The two mysteries soon become one, and reveal more about each other than could ever be gleaned by solving one on its own.

When Do-joon is arrested for the murder, following an earlier run-in with police over a violent but harmless confrontation, his acupuncturist mother declares that she'll do anything to prove his innocence. Her investigation, however, reveals the darkest consequences of unconditional love, uncovering ways in which adults' influences poison and corrupt the children around them, well-intended or not.

Mother deals deftly in inconsistencies, in characters and tone. Bong delights in finding opportunities for offbeat humor in the most tragic situations, resulting more often in discomfort than laughter, albeit a decidedly endearing discomfort. He views his characters, too, with affection but a distinct lack of sympathy, and as their layers are peeled back, however ambiguously, the audience finds itself on increasingly unsure footing with regard to its feelings toward them. It becomes clears that even if they don't know the facts about the central mystery, both mother and son know more than they're letting on — to each other and to themselves.

Do-joon, slow and prone to fits of rage, is not stupid, and the impression becomes one of someone acting purposefully. His mother is blinded by love as much by denial, and Bong leaves the balance between the two uneasily vague.

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