THE STORY – Hong Sang-soo returns to themes of aging and the creative pursuit, centering on a middle-aged actress whom we come to know through three conversations with young journalists during a press tour for her first film after years of retirement.
THE CAST – Song Seon-mi, Kim Seon-jin, Oh Yeon-su, Kang So-yi, Ha Seong-guk, Cho Yun-hee, Park Mi-so
THE TEAM – Hong Sang-soo (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 84 Minutes
For many major filmmakers, planning their next project as an 84-minute black-and-white film might be intimidating. And devoting most of the film’s runtime to three single-take shots of two characters simply talking might suggest career madness. But for writer/director Hong Sang-soo, it’s just another Tuesday.
The premise of “The Day She Returns,” the 34th film in Hong’s three-decade career, couldn’t be simpler. Jeong-su (Song Seon-mi) was a beloved star in her early career but retired from films a dozen years ago to marry and raise a daughter. After the marriage ended in divorce, Jeong-su, at her daughter’s urging, has resumed her acting career and is currently on a press tour promoting her comeback in a small independent feature.
Hong has divided his film into four chapters: the first three are the interviews themselves, largely shown in their entirety, with 18 minutes for the first and about 13 minutes each for the subsequent interviews. Hong, again serving as his own cinematographer, positions his camera to capture Jeong-su in three-quarter profile while he sits in a booth at a German-themed restaurant. The young female interviewers’ faces are largely limited, suggesting they may be interchangeable in Hong’s mind.
Anyone who’s been part of a press tour will likely recognize the small details of setup, which Hong depicts to a fault. As the first interviewer (Kim Seon-jin) begins, it’s clear that, while Jeong-su was once a pro at this, she’s a little rusty around the edges. But she soon takes charge, getting the reporters on their back foot by asking them directly what they thought of her film. Most are complimentary, though one hedges, saying that she’ll have to think about it.
But soon each interviewer, probably at the behest of their clickbait editors, dives in to get the juicy details of why Jeong-su thinks her marriage failed. Knowing the consequences of answering, she politely demurs, and in trying to change the subject, she mentions how good the German beer is in the restaurant, which only leads to questions about her drinking habits. (The fact that the film at the center of the press tour is rarely mentioned at all may be a sly joke on Hong’s part.) But Jeong-su gets matters back on track by assuring reporters that the script’s quality drew her to the project and that it has helped her see things again as they really are.
The second interviewer (Oh Yeon-su) is slightly more aggressive, pushing back by saying that, when dealing with people, honesty is not always the best policy. Impressed, Jeong-su asks if she would join her for a beer, which she also indulges in with the third interviewer (Kang So-yi), not exactly a stellar move for maintaining clarity. With her tongue slightly loosened, Jeong-su sheepishly reveals that she is only just now taking acting lessons. Amusingly, each interviewer ends the questioning with the same question: what advice would the veteran actress give to young people just starting out? Her answer is always the same: “Love yourself.”
Between interviews and under the watchful eye of her personal assistant (Ha Seong-guk), Jeong-su retreats to vape in a nearby park and considers what she has revealed about herself in the interviews. After the day’s questioning concludes, she calls the second interviewer to first ask (and then demand) that certain answers about her personal life be removed from her article. Her desire for clarity doesn’t seem to extend to elements that might harm her career.
The film’s fourth chapter may be its most revealing: the acting class Jeong-su alluded to earlier in the day. Her teacher (Cho Yun-hee) assigns her to summarize her Q&As in script form, which she will then memorize and act out with a fellow student (Park Mi-so). Memorizing the show-biz answers she gave during the day is a snap, but recalling what she said when answering questions about her personal life proves far more troublesome, forcing her to refer back to her script again and again to recall her not-always-accurate memories of her answers. Is she conveniently forgetting the past, or does her new career chapter require her to blot out the most painful moments of the last few years, or worst of all, is her memory failing due to her age?
Though never overtly spoken in dialogue, Jeong-su’s fear of aging comes through clearly, thanks to Song’s subtle but finally detailed performance. From her performatively polite reactions to facing three younger women finding their own places in the industry to her panic at realizing how fragile her memory has become, she communicates so much by doing so little, bringing Hong’s themes to life.
If you’re looking for a director with an expressive sense of mise en scene, Hong is not your man. As in so many of his prior films, he relies on static long takes (with an occasional zoom now and then), with his characters sitting at a table, talking and drinking. (In that sense, he’s become the new Eric Rohmer, only with more alcohol.) Add to that a little of what’s thought of as conventional drama, and you have a filmmaker whose taste may not suit all audiences. But he can extract memorable central performances, as he has done here and in many of his other works, which makes him a filmmaker worth appreciating.
