As good as Jeon Do-yeon was in Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine, she’s even better in the director’s Possible Love, a contemporary parable about a woman named Mi-ok who is struggling to find satisfaction within a family unit that has been deeply damaged by ruthless corporate restructuring. The movie begins with onscreen text of a biblical commandment—“Thou Shalt Not Covet”—and ends with a dedication to Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Decalogue X, which considers the same edict. Even so, covetousness is only one of the movie’s thematic concerns. As it follows a documentary filmmaker (Cho Yeo-jeong) who places Mi-ok’s family at the center of the movie she’s making about laid-off factory workers, questions arise involving artistic ethics, class barriers, cultural shame, and voracious capitalism. Lee (Poetry, Burning) brings his usual eye for quiet, composed beauty, especially in flashback scenes to Mi-ok’s youth. But it is Jeon’s performance as Mi-ok that truly distinguishes the movie. Laid off along with her husband (Sul Kyung-gu), who was then beaten nearly to death by police during ensuing protests, Mi-ok has been leading a financially and emotionally stifled existence—at least until the director chooses to interview her for the documentary. Mi-ok blossoms before the camera—Jeon transforms her into a master storyteller—and begins to imagine possibilities for herself, not all of which she should necessarily pursue. Don’t sleep on Sul as Mi-ok’s reserved husband, however. At first it seems as if he will remain, silently simmering, in the background, but in the movie’s final third the narrative shifts to incorporate him in ways that are both frightening and devastating.
(11/11/2026)
