Mother

I am so impressed with Bong Joon-ho. Every movie he makes is a different genre but maintains his signature, and each and every one of them is a banger. Mother might be my favorite outside of Parasite (as of today). It shows him tackling the murder mystery and thriller genres. It might also be his least sociopolitical movie outside of the beginning. Of his pre-Parasite movies, I think this one probably has the strongest acting as well. The characters are quirky as to be expected from Joon-ho, and though there are comedic moments, there is a sense of unease and injustice that ratchets up as the movie progresses. As the characters become more and more steeped in the mystery, the viewers start to unravel the toxic relationship between mother and son and those in their orbits. It's fascinating and tragic, and it's striking how much Bong Joon-ho is able to pull out of the juxtaposition of the surface-level naivety of both characters against the violent underpinnings of the thriller genre to incredible effect.

Didn’t work for me at all. There’s a core here that works–mother drawn to extreme lengths to protect the son accused of a crime. But the first 45 minutes dragged without me building a connection to any of the characters, so then I didn’t feel invested in much that came after. There were some strange editing choices and some odd plot elements and….I could go on. It just wasn’t my movie.