Shin-hye (Uhm Jung-hwa, Singles) works as a producer at a cable TV station. Strong-willed and ambitious, she attracts the notice of a much younger twenty-something colleague Hyeon-seung, and after a night of drinking they end up in bed together. Slightly embarrassed (but secretly a bit thrilled) to have hooked up with such a younger man, she writes it off as a one night stand. But when he turns up the next day with a bouquet of flowers, she finds herself in the middle of an awkward situation.
Mi-yeon (Moon So-ri, HaHaHa) believes there to be no major problem in her relationship with her husband, the owner of a gas station. They have an active sex life, driven by Mi-yeon’s insistent and seemingly inexhaustible desires. But her husband is secretly taking Viagra. Overwhelmed by her demands, and sensing that his feelings are being ignored, he has gradually lost all desire for her.
Hae-young (Cho Min-soo, Pieta) lives alone with her daughter, and the two of them are close. But she has recently started dating a carpenter named Seong-jae, who brings her a great sense of contentment and happiness. As their relationship deepens, things start to grow a bit uncomfortable between Hae-young and her daughter.
The 2003 film Singles is a much beloved and well-remembered work within the Korean film community. It contained breakout performances from Uhm Jung-hwa and also Jang Jin-young, who tragically died of stomach cancer six years later. The film captured well the concerns of Korean women in their late 20s and early 30s, and now director Kwon Chil-in returns with a film that is centered around women in their 40s. As a stand-alone work, Venus Talk is in turns funny, insightful, sexy, entertaining and sad: well worth watching. For those who remember Singles, echoes of the earlier film give it an added depth.
Shin-hye, Mi-yeon and Hae-young are the closest of friends, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t keep secrets from each other. As a number of unexpected and sometimes startling developments occur in their lives, they often look to each other for support, but according to their various personalities they sometimes feel too uncomfortable or embarrassed to share their worries. This well-drawn friendship between the three protagonists stands at the center of the film, but it is arguably not the primary focus. Instead, director Kwon and screenwriter Lee Su-ah are using a diverse collection of individual scenes and experiences to paint a portrait of a generation.
Because of that, there are many elements in Venus Talk that are likely to resonate with viewers in a highly personal way. The film’s target audience may be Korean women in their 30s and 40s (the most important segment of the moviegoing demographic in South Korea today), but its appeal stretches much wider, thanks to its well-drawn characters (both leading and supporting roles) and strong, nuanced storytelling. The film is also not afraid to get dark when it needs to be, making the events in the film feel surprisingly real. Admittedly, its episodic nature makes it difficult to bring the events of the film to a satisfying conclusion, and its last scene is probably its weakest (even with a cameo from K-pop star Boa). But the film as a whole is impressively well made.
As he demonstrated in Singles and Hellcats (both of which screened at FEFF), Kwon Chil-in excels at working with his cast. There is a relaxed quality to many of the performances that suit this film well. In particular, Cho Min-soo and Lee Kyeong-young have to rank as one of the most effortlessly charming and touching onscreen couples in recent memory. Even when they’re doing nothing more than sitting together and chatting, they are a huge pleasure to watch.
Darcy Paquet