You
would think Heaven would have the best clerical help available, but it is
apparently hard to find officious bureaucrats with good hearts. Just like they
did in Here Comes Mr. Jordan and Heaven Can Wait, the celestial paper
pushers have summoned a soul before its time. In this case, high-powered super
attorney Yeon-woo still has a perfectly good body resting in a coma. If she
merely takes the place of a woman whisked away one month early, she can be transferred
back to her regular body and the life that goes with it. Of course, that will
be plenty of time for her to forge emotional attachments in Kang Hyo-jin’s Wonderful Nightmare (trailer here), which closes the
2015 New York Korean Film Festival.
Yeon-woo
grew up as an orphan when her sailor father was lost at sea and her mother died
prematurely of a broken heart. She learned to rely only on herself. She now
thrives as a cutthroat power lawyer, but concrete traffic barriers are just as
solid for her as they are for the rest of us. Nevertheless, she was supposed to
walk away from her accident—and she still will, once she has done a solid for
Mr. Lee, the manager of Heaven’s processing center.
Yeon-woo’s
instructions are clear. She is not to make any consequential changes to her
host body’s life. Of course, the highbrow attorney chafes at their lower middle
class lifestyle. She is also freaked out at the prospect of having a teenaged
daughter and a son in kindergarten. At least her husband Sung-hwan is handsome,
but his work as a civil service salaryman hardly impresses her. Eventually, you
know exactly what starts to happen, despite Yeon-woo’s initially standoffish, nervous
breakdown-like behavior. That means tough choices and sacrifices are
inevitable.
Nightmare was a huge hit
domestically, so you know you’re going to need a hanky. However, screenwriter Kim
Je-yeong cranks up the sentimentality in rather clever ways. It is manipulative
as all outdoors, but at least it calls back and closes loops in ways that
enrich the narrative. We’re going to get played by Kang and Kim, but played
well.
Uhm
Jung-hwa is game enough in the ostensibly anti-diva diva role. In the 1990s,
she was sort of like the Julia Roberts of Korea, but she is still at the top of
her game. Obviously, you do not maintain that kind of clout by phoning it in.
She also develops some appealingly easy-going chemistry with Song Seung-heon as
her husband for the month. Rubber faced character actor Kim Sang-ho mostly
keeps the shtick in check as Kim from above. However, the film’s real discovery
is the charismatic Seo Shin-ae, who is perfectly cynical and sarcastic in a
teen kind of way as her daughter Ha-neul.
You had better believe there are lessons to be
learned in Nightmare. There is also a
good deal of body-switching comedy that is more worthy of groans than laughs.
Nevertheless, when the film throws down the melodramatic hammer, it somehow
gets it all together and brings it home. In all truth, The Beauty Inside (screening today at NYKFF) is an even more emotionally satisfying romantic fantasy, but Kang
closes strong. Recommended for fans of feel good, slightly supernatural
rom-coms, Wonderful Nightmare screens
this coming Wednesday (11/11) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the
2015 NYKFF.
