[HanCinema's Film Review] "Gyeong-ah's Daughter"

Gyeong-ah (played by Kim Jung-young) is an older woman who works as a caregiver for Woon-gyoo (played by Im Hyeong-tae), a senile, usually bedridden man who she treats as if he were her husband, even if he's not. Gyeong-ah's actual husband doesn't appear in this movie and it's not completely clear what happened to him. All we know is, that Gyeong-ah's relationship with her daughter Yeon-soo (played by Ha Yoon-kyung) is strained in the present day, despite clear affection on both sides.

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I'm a bit loathe to spell out the exact premise of "Gyeong-ah's Daughter" since it's technically a plot twist. The short explanation is that Gyeong-ah recently broke up with Sang-hyeon (played by Kim Woo-kyun), and in brutal fashion, writer/director Kim Jung-eun-IV outlines a scenario that definitely isn't the plot of a romantic film, even if Sang-hyeon clearly wishes that it was. How this strains the relationship between Gyeong-ah and her daughter is...complex.

And to a fair extent, it's also a plot twist. The title to this film isn't "Gyeong-ah's Daughter" by random accident. Gyeong-ah is, for the most part, the main perspective character. While Yeon-soo's perspective is spotlighted quite often, mainly what we see of it is just Yeon-soo becoming increasingly withdrawn and introverted. Yeon-soo doesn't really have anyone who can she can talk to about what happened, and the few people she does talk to, it's not clear that they care.

Or to be a little more specific, Yeon-soo isn't confident enough that they would care to want open up to them. Is Yeon-soo being unfair to her friends, to her mother? Probably. But that's not really the point. Yeon-soo simply resents the situation she's in. So for her mother to act as if Yeon-soo has somehow provoked her own problems is, well, it's just not what Yeon-soo wants to hear at the moment. And Yeon-soo is presented as entirely correct to be on her guard after everything that's happened.

I should note that by "what happened" I'm referring less to the situation with Sang-hyeon specifically as I am to patriarchy in general. Gyeong-ah has internalized a lot of toxic ideas about how women should behave, based mainly on her own past experience. But the purpose of this late exposition in "Gyeong-ah's Daughter" isn't feminist critique so much as discussing the idea of how people see family as always being on their side, and how people can believe they're on the side of their family while their own family doesn't actually interpret their behavior that way.

In this way, "Gyeong-ah's Daughter" is a remarkably strong expression of familial estrangement. Yeon-soo isn't just estranged from her mother, of course, that's just the starkest example because Gyeong-ah is the only person in Yeon-soo's life who really worries about her, even if she does it wrong. Gyeong-ah understanding that her relationship with Yeon-soo goes beyond childish applications of guilt...well, that's the film's whole thematic core, as we see Gyeong-ah making sincere amends, and with that, there's a glimmer of hope that the relationship can truly recover.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Gyeong-ah's Daughter" is directed by Kim Jung-eun-IV, and features Kim Jung-young, Ha Yoon-kyung, Im Hyeong-tae, Lee Chae-kyung, Lee Ji-ha, Choi Hee-jin. Release date in Korea: 2022/06/16.