Much touted debut for South Korean writer/director Celine Song is a romantic triptych about missed opportunity, roads not taken, the one that got away, alternate destiny. Formatted in twelve-year gaps, we first meet Seung Ah and Hae Sung in Korea as top-of-their-class 12-yr-olds; then web bonding at 24 after she moved to the States and they lost touch; finally in a physical reunion at 36 when he comes to visit (she’s married; he’s just out of a relationship) in NYC. Song, with cinematographer Shabier Kirchner, shows a bad case of Kar-Wai Wong envy, loading up on swoony regret, but does bring some real insight in the middle section when Seung Ah (now called Nora and finding her new self at a writers’ colony) shuts down a quickly growing internet intimacy with Hae Sung that’s starting to fill up too much brain space. But once the cycle plays out, country and culture separation seem neither as interesting, let along defining, as Song seems to think. 12-yr-old school chums lose ‘best friends’ after moving to another county let alone another country. Or even when staying put. Chances are, physical separation and lack of contact are the only factors in keeping them mentally bonded. (Absence makes the heart grow fonder not exactly a fresh concept.) The film nice enough, especially the guy in the case, warm to her prickly, and reasonably well observed even if the scenic New York locales she takes him to seem pretty square for the hip playwright Nora has supposedly become. If she wrote this up for the stage, it could be called MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING if that title weren’t already taken.
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