Lots of thrillers featuring writer's block-stricken main characters are let down when it turns out the thrills are just metaphorical (it was in their imagination, an author's struggle manifest, or worse, just a dream) (Swimming Pool, Secret Window, etc. etc..) but that's not the case here with this beautifully acted, chilling, thrilling Murakami Haruki short story adaptation in which North Korean propaganda announcements, porsches, dilapidated shacks and swanky apartments are the all too real indications of the divides that exist between the have-nots (like wannabe-writer Jong-soo, who doesn't even have a mother in his life and looks like losing Hae-mi, the girl he is interested in) and the haves like Ben (a mysterious playboy who seems to be coming between Jong-soo and Hae-mi) and greenhouses, stones, and fires suggest what is being written is something real that thumps in your chest and strips you bare; the trick in the end is that this thriller leaves you devastated, wishing it were just a metaphor or, even better, just a dream - please, just wake up.
★★★★★
CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS
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