Mother is perhaps a slightly surprising move for Bong Joon-Ho, the South Korean director who broke records in his home country and attracted the attention of Hollywood with his monster movie, The Host, in 2006 (indeed hes rumoured to currently be working on an English-language film that will be produced by JJ Abrams). Mother is almost the opposite of a monster movie, a relatively small scale drama/thriller/murder-mystery/character study, concentrating on a middle-aged woman.
The premise is fairly simple. A mother (who is never named) lives with her slightly mentally handicapped son, Do-joon, and dotes on him, even if she doesnt like the fact he hangs around the dodgy Jin-tae. After a teenage girl is found murdered, pressure is put on the police to find the killer. They arrest Do-joon on circumstantial evidence, which utterly devastates his mother, who cannot even contemplate the idea that hes guilty. With events initially seeming to conspire to ensure Do-joon will be locked away forever, his mother sets off on a quest to prove his innocence, uncovering salacious details about the girls life, and isolating herself from those around her in her implacable belief in her son.
However, while thats the basic set-up, Mother is less about plot (indeed, some of the actual story is a little too convenient, although it has some interesting twists) and more about character and incident. As it goes along, it reveals itself as a murder mystery that isnt really about discovering the truth, but about the lengths we will go to in order to try and maintain what we consider to be the certainties and central beliefs or our lives, especially when theyre about to be destroyed.
Its a film filled with wonderful moments, where Bong Joon-ho plays with the audiences expectations and takes you inside the characters experience of the world. Whether its an excellent make-you-jump moment at the beginning, where youre so drawn into what you think is going to happen that when something else occurs its actually quite shocking, or a shot of someones toes literally curling when theyre find themselves trapped and having to watch two people having sex, its all beautifully and carefully put together. The result is that by the end, when the movie diverts from what youd expect from a typical murder mystery, you may not agree with what happens but its all completely understandable and wonderfully realised.
Its also an incredibly good-looking movie, with great care taken over camera placement, colour and shot composition. Not letting the side down are the actors, with Kim Hye-ja putting in a truly astonishing performance as the mother. A vast range of emotions flit across her face as she goes about her mission, turning what could have been a slightly one-dimensional, melodramatic role into something far more complex and interesting. Her excellent acting merges with the directors clever use of montage to create something truly memorable, where you really feel for her, even when things are revealed to be more complicated than they initially appear. Won Bin as Do-joon is also very good, departing massively from the heartthrob image hes previously been known for in Asia.
Mother is certainly an unusual film, but its a very good one. Its a movie thats part family drama, part thriller and part murder mystery, which has lots of unexpected moments of comedy, occasionally verges on the surreal, and has a visual style which is so dense that it almost feels like a period drama (even if that period is now). However perhaps its greatest achievement is that even when it takes a twist towards the extreme, it still feels very personal, focussing its gaze intently on human nature itself. The tension and unnerving sensation Mother generates comes more from what it suggest about all of us than the usual tricks directors deploy to affect the audience. That alone is no small feat, and ensures Mother is well worth seeking out.
Overall Verdict: A wonderful character study that works and both drama and murder mystery, and truly deserves the often over-used adjective, Hitchcockian.
Reviewer: Tim Isaac