Return to Seoul is an ambitious film, telling the story of a young woman named Freddie, who was born to Korean parents, but grew up in France. She - you guessed it - returns to Seoul, partly motivated to search for them, in her early to mid-20s. From there, the movie plays out sort of the way you'd expect for a while... until it makes some interesting narrative decisions, spanning far more time than I'd expected it would. As such, we get an insight into Freddie and the ways she changes throughout her 20s and into her early 30s.
Tonally, it's very different from The Worst Person in the World, but I got flashes of that film from this; maybe it scratched a similar itch. Each looks at a troubled & flawed, yet interesting, compelling, and sympathetic young protagonist, each spans quite a long period of time, each explores loneliness and the trials and tribulations of early adulthood in a very hard-hitting way, and each is quite visually striking. But like I said, they're tonally different, given Return to Seoul is more of a straightforward drama than a romantic-dramedy, and it gets darker and more in-depth with its exploration of loneliness (which hits extra hard, given what the world's been through since the start of the 2020s).
It's not always clear where the film is going, and some of the decisions it makes are quite jarring (though most work for the story and characters, once the shock wears off). The pacing is quite slow, but the compelling main character, the visually pleasing look of the film, and the amazing acting kept me engaged for almost all of its two-hour runtime. Park Ji-Min gives one of the best performances of 2022, and I was shocked to read this is her first ever movie. A performance like this that's so central makes or breaks this kind of character-focused film, and thankfully, she's up to the task and then some.
This might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I liked it a lot. While it was deliberately-paced, it never lost me, and I found some of the scenes quite moving. It's a very good movie; hopefully it won't go under too many people's radars, as Awards Season ramps up.
