The 2014 film ‘A Girl At My Door’ is our latest review for our Patreon Exclusive. I recently wrote an Actor Spotlight about Bae Doona and it sparked my interest again for the film.
Beware, spoilers ahead.
I’d seen the trailer for the first time quite a while ago and I wanted to watch it because one it’s a police film, two it has Doona in it and three it has gay representation. I think I’d come across it on a post about Korean films with LGBTQ representation.
The Script
The director is July Jung who is also the screenwriter. Apart from this she’s only done a couple of short films. This was her big screen debut, sadly she hasn’t done anything else. I don’t know if it’s from a lack of want or if she hasn’t been offered anything. If it is the latter it would be kind of crazy because she won the 2015 Baeksang Award for Best New Director which is kind of huge.
The story of ‘A Girl At My Door’ is about a police officer who’s been sent to the middle of nowhere because her previous office discovered that she was in a relationship with another woman. That’s apparently a big no no and reason to be disciplined.
At first the small little town welcomes her with open arms, though it’s not long before Young-nam (Bae Doona) discovers that all is not as it seems. The people in the town are small-minded. There are casual racist remarks being thrown around by the villagers. One of them being Lee Jeung-Eun who you know as the housekeeper in ‘Parasite’.
The fishing village uses illegal immigrants during the summer to do the heavy labour because most of the folks are old and can’t do the job. Young-nam only discovers this when one of the workers wants to go home and he isn’t allowed to.
That’s where our next main character comes into play. Song Sae-Byeok, playing the role of Yong-Ha is the one to bring the immigrants in. He’s also taking care of the highschooler Do-Hee (Kim Sae-ron).
The main plot
This triangle between Young-nam, Do-Hee and Yong-Ha is where the main story takes place. Yong-Ha is Do-Hee’s dad, but he’s abusive when drunk. Young-nam finds out and decides to have Do-Hee live with her during the summer after the grandmother (who’s also abusive) is found dead in the sea.
I wasn’t particularly a fan of Song Sae-Byeok’s performance. It felt quite one dimensional, though that was probably more to do with the script than with the acting. Apart from seeing him angry or almost threatening, we don’t really see any other emotion.
The characters Young-nam and Do-Hee felt a lot more layered. Young-nam is an alcoholic, but keeps everything very contained. She pours entire soju bottles into 2 liter water bottles and drinks from lemonade glasses to keep her alcoholism hidden. Her ex-girlfriend comes to visit at one point and it all feels very tragic. The one moment where some of Young-nam’s control slips, they are caught and the mask slips back on.
I think I would have liked to see a little bit more interaction between the two women, because it all felt quite superficial.
Do-Hee played by child actress Kim Sae-ron did an amazing job. Her teenage character goes from being a victim, to young girl, to manipulator in the flash of an eye. It was such an interesting performance. I’m not surprised she won the Best New Actress at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for this role.
Dark, dark, dark
‘A Girl At My Door’ does get very dark (or darker I should say) at one point. Yong-Ha saw Young-nam kiss her ex-girlfriend and threatens to expose her for being gay. He accuses her of sexually abusing Do-Hee and tells her police co-workers. She gets questioned and of course denies everything, because she didn’t sexually abuse the girl. Do-Hee however, gets a bit lost during questioning and when given a doll to show where she was touched, she touches everything. The cops believe her and lock Young-nam up.
That was not what Do-Hee wanted. So, she gets her dad drunk and sets the stage so that it looks like he was the one to sexually abuse her and not Young-nam. That scene was so horrible/awkward to watch, so make sure that you’re not watching this film with your parents.
It works and the dad gets locked up and Young-nam gets her freedom back. The village doesn’t want her there anymore however, so she has to pack up her stuff and leave.
I almost thought that Do-Hee would be left alone, but Young-nam goes back to pick her up and take her with her to start a new life.
Overall
The movie definitely has its good points, though it still lacks in others. I would have liked to see a more dimensional character for Young-Ha and a bit more background in Young-nam’s character. I think it would have made it a bit more rounded and balanced.
Side note, I spent almost an hour looking for the song that plays during the credits. It’s ‘Was it a dream or the wind’ by Hee Jung Han. You can find it on YouTube here, though sadly I couldn’t find it on Spotify.
Here’s the trailer for ‘A Girl At My Door’.
