Les Bonnes Étoiles (2022)

Painting A Painful yet Beautiful Gestures and Emotions into One Huge Canvas.

Visually this movie is really artistic, aside from the aesthetics and beautiful cinematography, the performances of the actors come out like a combined art in the movie, it's like they're painting a painful yet beautiful gestures and emotions into one huge canvas.

Performance wise, the actors successfully conveying the messages of the story with their whole body, eyes, slight hands or shoulders movements, even the way they breathe can tell us the solid messages and emotions. Salute to all actors, no exceptions, even the child actors and the cameos, they show great acting quality, especially Song Kang Ho, Lee Ji Eun aka IU and Bae Doona.

We don't need to question any more about the acting quality Song Kang Ho has, there were one scene he walked while holding a doll after seeing his daughter, and he made me want to cry just by looking at his back. He is great and his all performances as Sanghyun, lead this movie so well.

I'm still shocked with IU, I actually didn't expect her to be this excellent for her movie debut. Her quality is multiple times better than her previous project, from facial expression, tones, gestures are all leveled up. Here she knows how to brings out enough portion of the emotions she has to show in every scene, and that looks visually poetic. There were not many scene where we can see Soyoung having a long physical contact with her own baby, Woosung, but once it happen -although it might look awkward, which is realistic, since Soyoung herself is an unprepared young mother- you can feel the hidden affections and the maternal instinct she has toward her baby, as a mother myself, i can clearly see it, maybe the other moms who watch this movie will feel the way i do.

The chemistry she has with Dong Soo is like a sweet bonus we get from the movie, proving that even without a physical contact you can still feel the butterflies by only seeing the image of Soyoung and Dongsoo in one frame. People keep mentioning the Ferris Wheel scene, yes it's so touching and heart breaking and i cried, but you'll actually see more of it throughout the movie.

Bae Doona as Soojin is not shown really often in the movie, but there were one scene where she has a conversation on the phone with someone, we don't really know who or what that other person says to her but her whole expression and tone in that scene is like telling a huge pain she has been dealing, whatever it is.

Story wise, it is kinda slowburn, up until half of the story. Surely it's not the type of movie that would make you cry a river, leave us in lots of angst nor laugh the hell out. It stays in the middle but if we see it in a positive way, actually with that we can slowly understand their wound and clearly see the emotion transitions in each character, also how they develop, personally it helps me to catch the feeling throughout the movie.

There were no long or difficult to understand narrations and dialogues, but almost every dialogues come with huge impact and weight.

Like everyone else's favorite, the "Thank you for being born" that said with IU's voice it's so precious, and i cried when the kiddo Hyejin say it to her in return.

In the end of the story, all of the characters here trying to find the best way to protect baby Woosung, it's heartbreaking and beautiful in the same time.

With this movie, Koreeda is trying to tell us not every woman who gave birth to a baby has an ability to be a mother, but every children that born deserves to receive protection and love from the adults around them. And that an action most people consider as irresponsible might be the best way to protect someone.

I watched this with my husband and our baby boy, my hubby cried a little at Soyoung and Soojin conversation inside the car. And on the way home he thanked me for giving birth and spending most of my time taking care of our son.

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Yet another masterpiece from Hirokazu Koreeda

For those who are already familiar with Hirokazu Koreeda will know what they are getting themselves into before watching this film.

If you go in to the cinemas expecting this to be fast pace action or suspense blockbuster film, than you will be disappointed. This is an art house film that is very much driven by the characters.

Each of the casts deliver outstanding performances. Song Kang-ho rightly deserve winning the Best Actor award for his starring turn in Broker at 75th Cannes Film Festival 2022. Lee Ji-eun (aka IU) is the heart and soul of this film as we watch her character change as she journey with the brokers.

Just go to the cinemas with the right expectation and this film will not disappoint while enjoy the empathetic road trip odyssey reflecting on the family we choose.

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