An elderly, fragile woman, Yang Mija (Yoon Jeong-hee), takes up a long-dormant interest in poetry but finds herself struggling to connect with the beauty she feels it needs to be created, when all around her is ugliness. Her grandson (Lee David) and five of his friends raped a girl from their school until she killed herself, and now the fathers of all the other boys are pressuring Mija to come up with the money to settle out-of-court with the dead girl's family. So that this little incident doesn't ruin the boys' futures. Mija feels isolated, torn between a lifetime of fading into the background and standing up for herself.
This is a very heavy movie. It is beautiful in its way, but it's definitely not an easy watch. Yoon gives a masterful performance as Mija. You can see the delicacy of her character, the tatters of an easy, even frivolous life falling away as she's forced to confront the darkness.
If you're prepared, give this a try. It's streaming on Criterion.
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