A Distant Place

This is a film that focuses more on being artistic rather than telling a story. There is little dialog, and the family connections of the group are not well explained. The characters spend a lot of their time just improvising dialog or staring into space, or at objects close by. There is little chemistry between the two male leads so their "relationship" does not come across as realistic. The scenery is beautiful but the story is poorly told! The movie never really achieves its full potential.

In remote rural Korea, Hyun-min works for a sheep / cattle farmer, and has become part of the "family". He also has his kindergarten-age niece Seol, who he prefer to stay around the farm with him. This carefully-curated life starts to unravel when his college boyfriend shows up for an extended visit, creating gossip among the locals. Then his twin sister shows up, wanting to reclaim Seol, who she left "temporarily" in his care 5 years ago.

The young girl is nicely bubbly and innocent. The boyfriends are mismatched, in that they don't look like they belonged in college together. There is some nice scenery that calls for a big screen (I saw this in digital on my computer). However, the story is slow-moving, and I find the ending unsatisfactory.

A worthwhile film with good acting by the entire ensemble. The director has a spare, slow style and wonderful visual sense. Cinematography was memorable. The script, however, is somewhat thin and some of the relationships seem lacking in development. I was confused, for example, by the specific relationships between the lead male and his twin sister. There might also have been more material making the relationship between the same-sex partners vivid and convincing, felt a bit flat............. But the movie captures how local mean-spirited homophobes can quietly and viciously try to ruin the lives of gay people. And how fighting to lead a full and authentic out life is challenging.

Usually, I try and come up with two genres, or subgenres, to describe the movies I review. I could only come up with Drama for this. Like REALLY heavy drama. Honestly no other. It really doesn't even qualify for a "romance," despite that poetic subplot.

You could cut the drama with a knife. While the movie is incredibly shot and beautiful, not to mentioned well-acted, it's so dour, so slow and everyone's so down. Fun, inspirational and uplifting aren't words to describe this. Sure, there is one aspect of a budding, rekindling?, relationship, it did not raise any spirits.

Jin Woo works on a sheep ranch with his young daughter Seol and for a father/much-older daughter team. Back-to-back an ex-lover of his and his twin sister/biological mother of Seol show up. The male wants to take Jin Woo away and the female wants to take Seol away.

While engaged, this movie is so drab, it's 100% not a fun watch. Minus a few nice classroom scenes with the poet teacher/ex/current(?) boyfriend. I honestly don't know what the point was to it all. I honestly don't think I could recommend it because it's SOOO long, SOOO slow and there's no spark to keep the interest.

The real only positives include the great cinematography, acting and believability - You really do feel all these characters belong where they reside on film.

Oh, and the two gay men are super-hot. I guess there's that.

***

Final Thoughts: Wouldn't mind a sequel, though. But, just about the two leading men. Not just because they're gorgeous and I wanted to see more of them...their subplot really was the only thing I cared about in this HEAVY drama. Yes, more than the child custody main plot.