Learning to be generous in the face of disappointment is perhaps a defining characteristic of adulthood. It’s a lesson the teenage heroines of Another Child (미성년m Miseongnyeon) must learn the hard way as they find an unexpected bond in realising that their parents aren’t bad people, just flawed and human. The debut directorial feature from actor Kim Yoon-seok who also stars in a minor role as the feckless patriarch, Another Child finds four women across two generations caught in very trying circumstances but acting with generosity and compassion as they endeavour not to make any of this harder than it needs to be.
The drama begins when 15-year-old Joo-ri (Kim Hye-jun) spots a compromising photo of her father and another woman on his phone. Following him around, she realises that he’s been having an affair with a woman who runs a duck restaurant a little way out of town and is actually the mother of one of her schoolmates, Yoon-ha (Park Se-jin), though they barely know each other seeing as they’ve never shared any classes. In any case, they do not really get on and eventually get into a fight over Joo-ri’s phone which she dropped at the restaurant while snooping, prompting Yoon-ha to blurt out the truth to Joo-ri’s already depressed and suspicious mother.
Despite Joo-ri’s outrage, her father Dae-won (Kim Yoon-seok) and mother Young-joo (Yum Jung-ah) have been sleeping in separate bedrooms for the last two years and appear to be married in name only. Nevertheless, Joo-ri hoped she could sort all of this out before her mother knew anything about it but the situation has been further complicated by the fact that Yoon-ha’s mother Mi-hee (Kim So-jin) is apparently several months pregnant – news which comes as a shock to Joo-ri who begins to accept that perhaps she can’t simply put an end to her father’s philandering and that nothing will ever be the same ever again.
This becomes doubly true once the baby is born in an early labour brought on by Young-joo’s impromptu visit to the restaurant. Guilt-stricken, Young-joo tries to do what she can for Mi-hee as another woman in a difficult situation while trying to encourage her rather snooty daughter to make friends with her almost step-sister. Despite themselves and the many differences between them, Joo-ri and the headstrong Yoon-ha do eventually start to bond but find their newfound friendship tested by their shared affection for their new little brother with Yoon-ha immediately adopting him and vowing to raise the baby herself in place of her irresponsible mother, even stopping to ensure his birth certificate is properly registered, while Joo-ri coldly suggests he be put up for adoption in the hope he gets a better education. Yoon-ha, practically minded in many other respects, would never abandon a family member, while Joo-ri makes what she thinks is the “sensible” if austere choice which prioritises Yoon-ha’s right to conventional success over familial duty.
Meanwhile, the four women are left to sort everything out amongst themselves. Dae-won is perhaps not a bad man, but weak and feckless. Unwilling to face what it is that he’s done, he runs away – avoiding seeing the baby while refusing to engage with the pain he’s caused his wife and daughter through his infidelity, still in denial that he’s destroyed his family home but never really intending to make a new one with Mi-hee who really was, it seems, just a mid-life crisis fling. Across town, Yoon-ha tries asking her own feckless father for money to pay some of her mother’s hospital fees as well as other expenses but finds him an irresponsible gambler who’d forgotten how old she was even if he eventually managed to recall her name.
Thanks to some gentle prodding from each other’s mothers, with whom both Yoon-ha and Joo-ri begin to find common ground, the girls eventually grow more accepting of their situation, looking for understanding rather than trying to apportion blame. No one here is really “bad”, just flawed and unhappy, caught up in an emotionally difficult situation that is either everyone’s fault or no one’s. None of them have anything to gain by making this harder than it needs to be and thankfully decide to take the moral high ground, not exactly forgiving but compassionate. “It’s not easy to live in this world”, Yoon-ha tells her new brother not quite knowing how right she is. A beautifully pitched exploration of magnanimous female solidarity and unexpected friendship, Another child is a finely drawn feature debut from the veteran actor which holds only sympathy for its flawed heroines trying to find grace in trying times.
Another Child screens on 11th July as part of the 2019 New York Asian Film Festival. It will also be screening as part of the 2019 Fantasia Film Festival on 14th/20th July.
International trailer (English subtitles)
Windows on Worlds 