Rent Mother (2009)

Thrilling stuff from a sensational director - Mother review by JB

A mother's love is a powerful thing and this movie from writer-director Bong Joon-ho, made before his sensational crossover hit Parasite, dramatises this to an extreme and devoted effect.

The mother in question, just known as "Mother" (Kim Hye-ja) lives with her twenty-something son, Yoon Do-joon (Won Bin) in near-poverty in a small South Korean town. Mother and son gain national attention when evidence implicates the son in the murder of a young woman and he is locked up, awaiting the outcome of the process. But he has been falsely accused - he has learning difficulties and the legal system favours the most articulate, and the rich, and his mother decides to step in herself to clear her son's name. She can't afford the supposedly necessary lawyer, who might not be interested anyway, but she has love on her side.

Fans of Parasite will recognise the mixture of shifting tones and attributes here; high drama and tension, mystery, violence, social commentary and off-kilter humour, to name but a few, often all existing side-by-side in a scene. It's a combination that constantly disarms and completely enthralls once you click into it. And that judicious use of an orchestral soundtrack… it's like stepping back into a warped Hitchcock movie, in the best possible way. Like Parasite, there are moments of real cinematic panache and beauty too ("Mother" in those fields… stunning).

This movie is also blessed with an extraordinary performance by Kim Hye-ja as the titular "Mother", who binds it all together. Like the film, her performance is a display of many facets… here, we have rage, anguish, determination, haughtiness, fragility and love. And that dancing at the beginning and end of the movie... Often, her son doesn't seem to understand what she's doing to help him, but that's not why she is doing it.

This is no dry essay on social inequality in South Korea, although that's the message we take away (quite rightly) from Mother. This is a full-blooded and unusual psychological, emotional, thrilling beast of a movie that ranks up there with cinema's most memorable depictions of motherhood of the last twenty five years, from Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother to Xavier Dolan's Mommy.

A bizarre and unique mystery drama with a terrific lead performance from Kim Hye-ja. - Mother review by Piehawker

It's an very well made film, and has stuck with me since, however I found Bong Joon Ho's mystery drama definitely his most inaccessible. The lead character, brilliantly played by Kim Hye-ja, was deliberately hard to read and get a handle on (which was the point) and her son equally so. While this makes the drama and the mystery work, it did make it hard to root for them or engage with their emotional struggles. It made for a somewhat detached experience.

Most of Bong's films feature slightly wayward lead characters who ride the line of being unlikeable but there is an understanding of why which humanises them (the chancer family in Parasite doing what they can to escape poverty, the small town cops in Memories of Murder based on their frustrations of solving a case they are out of their depth with, the family in The Host based on their grief and confusion of a lost child) This film has much less of that sense from the leads, which I found hard to engage with as much. The Oedipal themes and relationship between son and mother is complex and creepy was harder to connect with.

I appreciated the filmmaking craft, excellent cinematography and the powerhouse lead performance from the titular Mother, it was a very unique character and really refreshing to approach a complex character in a crime drama with that type of actor.

The film also has stayed with me long after it finished (the sign of a good director??) and after writing this review has made me want to revisit it again which is a good sign. But I did find it the least accessible Bong Joon Ho film (which isn't to say it's not a decent film) His films like The Host and Memories of Murder have a rewatchability, Parasite has the social commentary and dark humor and Snowpiercer and Okja have more of a western film influence as they have American and British actors mixed into the production, whereas Mother slightly stands out as a bizarre low key mystery drama which I found was a bit harder to latch onto.

Definitely worth watching if you are a Bong Joon Ho completist and is an excellent film, but I found his most unique and least engaging.

Unwatchable - Mother review by JC

Not able to watch more than 10 to 15 minutes of this film.  We did not enjoy it.  We have seen a previous film by this director that wasn't bad, but this film is not very good, although it received good reviews.