Aimie, a newly arrived Korean immigrant teenager, has fallen in love with her best and only friend, Tran. She tries to express her feelings for him, but is scared of losing their friendship. Their misunderstood affection for each other creates a delicate relationship that is challenged by the demands of living in a new country. To spend more time with Tran, Aimie drops out of her English class, which she is failing. She fights against her mother who wants to remarry and then realizes she's
losing Tran to an Americanized Korean girl. Aimie's world becomes more isolated, until she is forced to look inside herself for answers.
Kim keeps dialogue to a minimum and provides the barest of story arcs, using a handheld camera to probe subtle shifts of emotion in her nonprofessional actors.
While Kim is unable to keep us riveted on her near-silent performance, the script and direction have a gentle sensitivity, subtly addressing cultural divisions while reminding us that angst, at least, is universal.
Its theatrical release today is an encouraging sign that there is still room, even in the midst of the summer glut, for a small, serious, unpretentious film.
Too minimalist for its own good when it comes to story details and even essential basic factual information, In Between Days can best be described as a skillfully lensed missed opportunity.
This superb debut feature by Korean-American director So Yong Kim seems to be constructed entirely of the ineffable and intangible, those fleeting moments that most movies treat as throwaways.
A touching and personal story that captures the swirling emotions of adolescence and the immigrant experience - and the heartbreak of being in the middle of both.
Too minimalist for its own good when it comes to story details and even essential basic factual information, In Between Days can best be described as a skillfully lensed missed opportunity.
In Between Days is a small slice of a suspended life, intimate and filled with the mundane details most people forget when the waiting is over and their real lives begin.
Maybe I just dont have the eye for these kinda films but the ending was just...well, to me that wasnt an ending. I wanted to like it, I really did. I could appreciate the disjointed, quiet, slow-paced quality of the film but I cant say what this film accomplished.
March 14, 2010
Rupa Blank
Good intentions from the same director as TREELESS MOUNTAIN, but BORING, BORING, BORING. What a let down. First South Korean flick I have seen I didn't like.
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