Never Forever

I am Korean working as a writer/director in America. The director studied in the same film school but I never met her. That was the only interest in this film.

I always didn't liked Vera Farmiga. I thought that her acting is awful since she feels so much about her look when she is acting. I never saw her getting into her character truly.

But in this film she was pretty good. At the beginning,she was not so good as usual. But as time goes by, I felt that she is feeling what her character needs and wants.

I still don't think that it's her hidden ability that made this possible but rather her effort working with the director.

Above all, I was very impressed about the film. There are a lot of layers in the story, each characters' emotion and of course the light and shadow in the mis-en-scene.

It's a wonderful art movie.

A woman, Sophie, makes a $$pact with an illegal alien man to try and get herself pregnant, she's married to an upper-middle class church-going professional who can't seem to get it done. Perfunctory sex for hire turns to something quite a bit more, not right away though (we're in on the action) and the three points of the human triangle come closer together. A slight jab is thrown at the Christianity as practiced by American Koreans, maybe that perfect house in the suburbs isn't all it seems. A good tale with a fine suspense on how it's all going to play out, and the ending leaves something for the viewer to ponder, about Sophie's choice.

I really, really admire Vera Farmiga for taking on this project. How can you not? Allow me to explain.

If you can suspend logical disbelief while watching this film, you will be swept away. The movie had a quiet and patient, but very powerful undercurrent.

It deals so nonchalantly with something that is so uncommon in movies nowadays, that I have to make mention of it. An Asian male in honest and open sex scenes with a white female. The real achievement here is that this movie avoids the race issue altogether. The director does not turn it into some kind of elephant in the room. No, it is an elephant of our own Western making, is it not? Was anyone else shocked to see love portrayed this way, where it is truly is shown as universal, not just possible between chosen ethnic pairings? The movie did not treat it like a big deal at all. The white girl - Asian guy couples I've met in real life don't treat it like a big deal either. I believe this ethnic pairing - currently, perhaps the only interracial pairing that actually occurs less frequently in Western movies than it does in real life - will become more commonplace as the Asian cinema industry matures, as the West becomes ever-increasingly comfortable with the East, as both sides evolve towards the human average, and there are more Asian actors from which to choose.

Now that aside, let's get back to the film itself, because it is more than capable of standing proudly on its own feet without its groundbreaking nonchalant attitude towards race.

Tremendous acting, especially from Ms. Farmiga and Jung-woo Ha, the "homewrecker." The amount of emotion that these two are able to convey in nonverbal moments is truly stunning. You will be moved.

The set designs and cinematography, in addition to the beautiful actors themselves, are a visual feast - a real aesthetic treat.

The sex scenes were very tasteful and well-done. As the relationship develops, so clearly does the depth and honesty of their physical relations, to the point where Farmiga's character is able to climax by simply daydreaming about her lover.

You may know the entire plot line to this movie already, and you will still have an A+ experience watching how it was executed.

I loved this film. It defied almost all my expectations, and will probably watch it several times over the course of my life. I would recommend that anyone who decides to watch this film, too, find within themselves a fraction of Vera Farmiga's open-mindedness, boldness, and vision when she took on this project.

A standing ovation for her.

While the romance genre is something I'm new to, I'd have to say this was one of the best ones I've seen (please remember, I've only watched about 5 romance movies in my 32 years of life).

A love that develops between people of two different races and cultures is something that I find very fascinating. It proves that we all want the same thing, no matter what creed, culture, race, nation, religion, whatever we come from.

That being said, Vera Farmiga puts on her best "desperate woman" role (I believe she won the Emmy for Bates Motel for playing a character I'd describe as such). Desperate to please her Korean-American husband and his family, she goes to a sperm clinic alone and witnesses a Korean man with an expired visa getting rejected as a donor.

Intrigued by the possibility of covertly and unmaliciously fooling her husband by having sex with a Korean man simply for the sake of having a baby she can at least pretend belongs to her and her husband, she follows the rejected sperm donor and eventually gives him a business proposal.

What follows is story of inner conflict, the desire (and simultaneous torment) to live up to societal and cultural expectations (and how they can get in the way of true love), as well as how other things out of our control can get in the way of being with the one we want.

While the epilogue left me a little confused, I was for the most part enraptured by the film. I think it'd be appealing to anyone having trouble finding true happiness and love.

Also, did Vera break the 4th wall at the end?

"Never Forever" is a deeply flawed movie replete with missed opportunities that whiz right past like rush hour buses in front of a motionless commuter. It is also well worth seeing, for a riveting performance by Vera Farmiga, a suggestive plot, and its treatment of unusual topics.

Sophie (Vera Farmiga), a beautiful, blonde, trophy wife, is determined to give Andrew (David McGinnis) her "master-of-the-universe," very wealthy and successful husband, the child he cannot father himself. He is infertile. Her husband is Korean, so she chases down Jihah, (Jung-Woo Ha) an illegal Korean immigrant, and offers him three hundred dollars for every time he has sex with her, and thirty thousand dollars once she gets pregnant. The two perform the act with complete alienation, but eventually develop feelings for each other.

The plot, is, of course, implausible. It reaches its height of silliness when Sophie tells Jihah she will pay him the bonus of $30,000 if she gets pregnant. Why the bonus? Would he really not have sex with this beautiful woman for three hundred dollars if he did not get the bonus? Are there other beautiful women out there offering bonuses of $25,000, and does Sophie need to remain competitive? Further, Sophie reveals no knowledge that a woman is fertile for a short window every month. Is she having sex with Jihah outside of that window of opportunity? Apparently so, because no seasons pass; all the action seems to take place during the same month.

Finally, why not just go to a sperm bank, or use a turkey baster? Indeed, why does Sophie remove every stitch of clothing? You really don't need to remove everything you've got on in order to perform the act necessary for pregnancy. The film's marketers show a healthy respect for the market appeal of nude Vera Farmiga.

Most of the action takes place in Sophie and Andrew's rich, cold, white, empty house and Jihah's squalid, lurid, red-and-green walled tenement. The director did not create enough atmosphere with these two sets. I never get a sense of Jihah's room. In one scene, it rains. That scene should have been milked for all it was worth: two strangers, separated by race and class, united for a moment, in a tiny apartment, as rain falls outside. Sigh.

Also, so much more could have been done with the sex scenes, which are rather flat and unimaginative. Sophie and Jihah connect, and transcend barriers of race and class, through this one act. I wish that they had been depicted with more eloquence.

In spite of the criticisms, this movie is well worth seeing. It isn't prurient. It's really a fairy tale about connection in spite of distance. Like a fairy tale, the film suggests and evokes more than it depicts, and the viewer's imagination is left to fill in the blanks.

"Never Forever" is also worth seeing because it is unusual. This is the only American film with a Korean-born Korean lead with a thick Korean accent that many viewers may ever see. Finally, the film is worth seeing for Vera Farmiga's riveting performance. She conveys volumes with a glance. Sophie is not very bright, and has limited strength. She sits around her gilded cage all day, while her maid cleans her house and her husband works. She's, simply, not very likable, but Farmiga makes Sophie very watchable.

Jung-Woo Ha as Jihah is also fascinating. He's not particularly good looking. He makes for a convincing illegal immigrant. He is short, slight, and wears stained t-shirts. As the film draws closer to him and spends more time with him, though, the viewer can see what is special about him, and comes to care about him – this process parallels the experience of falling in love. At first the other may come across as not that special, but as two people get closer together, they see what is special about the other.