A woman devoted to her son struggles to keep him from spending his life in prison in this drama from director Bong Joon-ho. Do-jun (Weon Bin) is a man in his mid-twenties who isn't especially bright and is easily led. Do-jun lives with his elderly mother (Kim Hye-ja), who loves him fiercely even though she has no illusions about his abilities or his bad habits. Do-jun spends much of his spare time with Jin-tae (Jin Gu), a borderline criminal who takes advantage of Do-jun's credulous nature, much
to his mother's annoyance. When Do-jun is arrested by police and accused of the murder of a young woman, his mother is certain he couldn't have done it and sets out to prove her son's innocence to police detectives, who seem more interested in closing the case than researching other possible leads. At first, mother feels certain that Jin-tae has framed her son to avoid being punished himself, but as she digs deeper she suspects the truth is more complicated. Madeo (aka Mother) was an official selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Bong's opening and climactic scenes, in which the old woman bops around to a dance tune amid a vast field of yellow grass, are typical of the movie's cockeyed poetry.
It is Hye-ja Kim that carries Mother, making her mother of a Mother an all-suffering, all-enduring victim who acquires more spine and subtler shadings as the story deliberately, patiently reveals its secrets.
The film has visual panache, but it's the way Bong uses such a unique character to tap into the lonely, damaged nature of the private eye archetype that really makes Mother stand out.
Mother is always a little larger than life -- a little richer and more strongly defined -- while never making life, real life, seem less than the full and focused object of its gaze.
Echoing Bong's previous output, a seam of absurd and precisely paced humour adds unpredictability to the ostensibly simple story, defying genre conventions while playfully satirising the film's stereotypes.
Mother is shot and edited with wonderful precision, and Bong continues to stun with his unerring ability to strike a perfect balance between the film's lighter and darker elements.
Slow-burning dark drama that features a fantastic performance by Hye-ja Kim in the title role.
October 9, 2009
Randy Tippy
Super Reviewer
Expected to like this a little more than I did. Was a very long movie, and it seemed to change half way through. It starts off as being about an overprotective mother and her simple son. I liked that angle. Then the son goes to jail over a murder it seems likely he did not commit (or did he...), and suddenly this
turns into a murder investigation led by the mother. It does pick up again at the end, but whether or not it was worth sticking with is debatable. This is quite a popular films with a lot of good reviews, so it's possibly just me and the mood I was in when I watched it, but it wasn't quite what i was expecting, and I was a little underwhelmed by it, though I'll admit the acting and filming was very good here.
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