What Does That Nature Say to You

Over the winding course of one languorous day, a good-natured thirtysomething poet, Donghwa (Ha Seongguk), visits the suburban home of his girlfriend, Junhee (Kang Soyi), and is introduced to her parents (Kwon Haehyo and Cho Yunhee) and sister (Park Miso) for the first time. Dazzled by the size of the home and the beauty of its rural environs, Seoul-dweller Donghwa bonds with the family, especially the benevolent patriarch, for whom family, tradition, and filial devotion seem paramount. Yet as the hours drift by—and, of course, the makgeolli flows—Donghwa’s anxieties gradually surface. Combining the casual familiarity of a meet-the-parents scenario with the lo-fi visual experimentation of his recent work like In Water (NYFF61), Hong Sangsoo’s latest keeps revealing new emotional layers, finally offering a rich examination of economic anxiety and contemporary alienation. An NYFF63 Main Slate selection. A Cinema Guild release.