In this completely engrossing portrait of a fading beauty, Mija (Jeong-hie Yun) finds herself entering life's final chapters as part-time care-giver to a semi-paralyzed stroke victim and sole guardian to her thankless teenage grandson.
Writer-director Chang-dong Lee introduces us to Mija with a visit to the doctor where she reports recent memory-loss. Shortly after, we see her burdened further with the consequences of a suicide by one of her grandson's classmates. But Mija's enrolment in a class for beginner poets allows us to witness her incongruous juggling act between a daily search for poetic inspiration and the unjust acceptance of responsibility for the actions of the men around her. Her capacity for compassion and finding beauty grows proportionate to her worsening circumstances.
Since we know Mija only after her early steps into dementia, it is impossible to be sure if she had always engaged the world with such sensitivity. Nevertheless, Lee seems to propose that it is Mija's dementia that opens her to surrounding suffering and beauty. But ultimately it is Jeong-hie Yun's masterful performance that provides us with arguably the most complex and satisfying portrayal of aging.
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