[HanCinema's Hawaii International Film Festival Review] "A Normal Family"

The opening scene for "A Normal Family" sets a grim tone as a road rage incident unexpectedly and unnecessarily accelerates. We're then left with Jae-wan (played by Sol Kyung-gu), the lawyer tasked with defending the murderous motorist, and his brother Jae-gyoo (played by Jang Dong-gun), the doctor charged with saving one of his victims. Based on the Herman Koch novel The Dinner, there are three dinners of some significance in the story between the two brothers, all dealing with other family matters.

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Despite the Dutch source material, it's hard not to see increasingly quintessential South Korean grimness throughout "A Normal Family" as Jae-wan unconvincingly rationalizes morally dubious behavior and Jae-gyoo almost as equally unconvincingly rationalizes his own presence in an obviously unjust system as having somewhat more integrity. The kids in particular aren't all right. There's hints that Jae-gyoo's teenage son is about as amoral as Jae-wan's daughter, with his being a target of bullying serving largely to obscure this.

There's plenty of underspoken resentments beyond this. Jae-wan's wife, played by Claudia Kim, is a lot younger than him and tries to be nice, but can never shake the impression of being a trophy spouse. Jae-gyoo's wife Yeon-kyeong, played by Kim Hee-ae, has clear insecurities about her age in addition to Jae-gyoo's own prejudices against his older brother. And to be clear, these are largely deserved. Jae-wan's demonstration at the first dinner as to the possible mitigating circumstances behind vehicular manslaughter takes on a hauntingly almost poetic undertone by the final scene.

But it's only almost poetic because "A Normal Family" is just so incredibly, unnervingly grim. One running subplot is about Jae-wan trying to talk Jae-gyoo into entering their increasingly demented mother into a nursing home. No matter how concilatory Jae-wan tries to be, it's hard to escape the feeling that he's using money to cover for his lack of emotional sentiment, and obsessively works to get more money as a means of moral indulgence.

Jae-gyoo operates the opposite way, taking the fact that his life is devoted to doing good as his own means of maintaining moral superiority. The attitude is still unfortunately a fundamentally transactional one, as can be seen when Yeon-kyeong tries to rationalize all the good they've done as doctors as granting an allowance to helping their son in a way that goes against their moral principles. Of course, moral principles don't work like that- therein lies the conflict.

While mundane, "A Normal Family" is frank and brutal in its mundaneity in a way that's hard to set aside. Compelling performances constantly beg the question of what will happen in the next time, and the tension is so strong that even scenes about the fates of undeveloped side characters have a strong impact. The road rager who sets off the initial action has a surprisingly effective and relevant final appearance, paradoxically, by not really emoting much at all. Sure, he's not as punchable as he was in his first scene. But is that really an improvement?

Written by William Schwartz

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"A Normal Family" is directed by Hur Jin-ho, and features Sol Kyung-gu, Jang Dong-gun, Kim Hee-ae, Claudia Kim, Hong Ye-ji, Lee Ga-kyung. Release date in Korea: 2023.