The Wonder Years is a debut feature from director Kim Hee-jung, an alumna of the Lodz Film School and winner of the Wide Angle Prize at PIFF for the short Once, Someday (2001). Thirteen-year-old Soo-ah (the original Korean title), played by Lee Se-young (the childhood Geum-young from TV drama Jewel In The Palace), is a shy, borderline-autistic girl living in a small Cholla Province town. Deeply unhappy, she believes that a popular singer Yoon Seor-yeong (Kim Yoon-ah, a real-life vocal artist) is her real mother, to the bafflement of her working mom Young-joo (Choo Sang-mi, A Smile, Turning Gate). When her junior high school life turns out to be more of the same, i.e. peer abuse and indifference, Soo-ah resolves to travel to Seoul and confront her real mother.
One thing Korean cinema has done rather well in the last fifteen years is its continued support for, and introduction of, female directors with strong personal visions, beginning with Yim Soon-rye (whose Forever The Moment is 2008’s first big Korean hit), Jeong Jae-eun (The Aggressives) and Byun Young-joo (Flying Boys). Kim Hee-jung is the latest in this roster of talented Korean female directors. Her Wonder Years is a gentle, composed character study that will probably bore viewers expecting either a well-heeled, cliché-bound melodrama with copious amounts of tears, or an adolescent phantasmagoria with surrealistic flights of fancy. The movie truly excels when writer-director Kim observes the seemingly mundane details of Soo-ah’s life with a compassionate gaze, letting the girl’s slouched, awkward walk or her disappointed expression at a broken VCR player - rather than spurious narration or distracting mise en scene - to speak for the character’s feelings.
It would surprise no one that Lee and Choo are two principal reasons to check out The Wonder Years. Lee Se-young’s portrayal of Soo-ah is remarkable in its subtlety and restraint. It is to her (and director Kim’s) credit that the latter’s terse (but often amusing) responses to adults' efforts to “make conversation” never once strike us as “precocious”. Choo Sang-mi, one of the most skilled and naturally talented actresses working in Korea today, is brilliant as usual, conveying, for instance, Young-joo’s lifetime of remorse and pain - but also the spiritual courage mustered by her to overcome them - in the brief moment of hesitation regarding where to hang a mirror. Truth be told, both actresses are so ridiculously beautiful that we at times have trouble seeing Soo-ah and Young-joo with the contemptuous eyes of the other characters in the movie. Lee’s face positively glows whenever the camera focuses on it: she is like a Winona Ryder going on 18 trying to play Ugly Betty. When one character grumbles, “Boy, not only is she ugly but…,” my only possible reaction is “You need an eye exam, kid”.
The Wonder Years is not without weaknesses. The story arc is rather predictable and ends in a disappointingly conventional resolution regarding Soo-ah's parentage. More seriously, director Kim’s interpretations of Soo-ah’s imaginary universe are surprisingly lackadaisical. In particular, the musical interludes, featuring Kim Yoon-ah belting out torch songs amid confetti and amber floodlights, look rather cheap and poorly choreographed. (I wish director Kim had employed some other tactic, like, say, Persepolis-like minimalist animation) While not an exciting and powerful debut feature comparable to, say, This Charming Girl Or Take Care Of My Cat, The Wonder Years is a solid character study with its own sense of integrity, as well as an excellent vehicle for the young actress Lee Se-young to showcase her considerable talent. |