About the movie
Mother (Madeo)
Rating: 
Cast:
Ku Jin; Kim Hye-ja; Bin Won
Directed by:
Joon-ho Bong
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READER FEEDBACK
Mother begins with a shot of a woman, seemingly at peace, out for a walk in a windblown field. But as the camera moves in on the face of Kim Hye-ja, the actress who owns the title role of Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho's gorgeously creepy mystery, it's apparent that all is not right in the world.
Indeed, in Mother, things are very wrong. Kim's character is a widow, a shopkeeper in a small village, obsessively devoted to her twentysomething, mentally challenged son, Do-joon (Won Bin). When a schoolgirl is found dead, Do-joon is accused of the murder. And his mother embarks on an epic mission to prove her son's innocence and get him out of jail.
As he did in The Host, his 2007 monster-movie horror homage and satire, director Bong ably mixes comedy with pathos, suspense with silliness, always with a focus on family dynamics, friendships, relationships. Mother offers a series of beautifully composed scenes and sequences, and there's an eerie, Hitchcockian vibe, but also a bit of Lynchian weirdness: the idea that something really disturbing lurks right around the bend, and that the audience could be in for some perversely jolly shocks.
Count on it.
- Steven Rea
