A light comedy with a touch of social commentary and a stellar cast, “Familyhood” is a work by the young South Korean director Kim Tae-gon who has a background in indie and horror films. It was very well received in South Korea and it probably marked a turning point in his career. In fact, his latest work “Project Silence”, starring the late Lee Sun-Kyun, premiered at Cannes Film Festival in 2023 and is one of the most anticipated films of 2024.
The story focuses on the character of Go Joo-yeon (Kim Hye-soo), a beautiful and rich actress/diva who is reaching what in show business is considered a critical age, close to the career “sunset”, i.e. her forties. Go continues to work, having not yet faced any blatant failure to secure parts in films and advertisings; however, her fame as an actress is gradually being concealed by her reputation as a mature woman who flirts with younger guys, basically what is infamously called a “cougar”. The actress lives in a beautiful house and is assisted by a small team consisting of the producer and father figure Kim, the funny and masculine lady driver Mi-Rae, and his faithful stylist Pyeong-goo (Ma Dong-seok), a big hunk and a dutiful family man, who is committed and devoted to her with a sincere affection that prevents him from accepting the numerous offers of more prestigious and better paid jobs.
Like a true diva, Go is moody and capricious, but she also has a genuine charm that lets her get away with almost everything, especially with her team. They always end up indulging all her whims, even when the idea of having (or adopting) a child on her own starts spinning in her head. When Go – who is having an affair with a young actor – discovers that the boy is just using her and is cheating on her with a girl his peer, the fury, the thirst for revenge and the awareness of impending menopause blend into an explosive mixture and a diabolical idea starts to emerge. After meeting Dan-ji (Kim Hyun-soo), a 15-year-old pregnant and desperate for an abortion, in the waiting room of her gynecologists', , Go finalises her convoluted scheme. She will fake her own pregnancy and, in the meantime, will take care of expectant Dan-ji; the teenager would be kept hiding in her house until delivery and the child would be adopted by the diva who also, in revenge, will declare that the father is the boy who cheated on her, therefore ruining the young actor's career. It is easy to imagine that the revenge will not go quite as planned.
“Familyhood”'s plot has probably been seen before; however, the director deals with it with a light touch and a solid and polite comedy style. The film addresses various social issues that are rather hot in South Korea, like the very short “lifespan” of celebrities and the strong prejudice that accompanies single motherhood and teenage pregnancies. However, it has the advantage of not wanting to be a film of social denunciation or an expose', nor does it attempt to find answers. As the director explained after the screening at the 2016 London East Asian Film Festival, his desire was to offer a different and unconventional vision of family relationships in the hope that the general public, which is the main target of this genre, will have the opportunity to elaborate on these issues and hopefully reassess their critical standpoint about them.
In a recurring gag of the movie, Go has a habit of gathering around the table what she considers her family and, like a mother, dishing up her (often failed) attempts at fine dining. She will take a long time to learn to give the people around her the respect she whimsically demands from them. Only at the end of the film, around that same table, her unconventional extended family will really come to life, despite the tortuous and not exactly edifying events that had brought it together in the first place.
Lead star Kim Hye-soo has a natural comic talent and carries much of the film on her shoulders. She does it with a great deal of self-irony – being herself a very well-known veteran actress in real life – and succeeds in outlining an eccentric and overwhelming Go, sometimes pathetic but never vulgar. Also very entertaining is the counter-stereotypical character of Go's stylist, assistant, and sidekick Pyeong-goo. Instead of the camp and hysterical type that this role often recalls, he is a hairy macho and down-to-earth loving dad and husband, who is played by the one and only Ma Dong-seok, the solid and virile actor, well known for his action roles. Together, they make an excellent comedy double act.
In short, “Familyhood”, despite not shining for originality of the story, is a comedy that can be watched with great pleasure and that rightfully places itself among the South Korean popular classic films on sisterhood and extraordinary families seen with an open mind, such as “Sunny” or “Singles”.
