Lee Chang Dong's Possible Love Is a Delicate Drama of Love and Longing in Anxious Times

(L to R) Sul Kyung-gu as Ho-seok, Jeon Do-yeon as Mi-ok, Cho Yeo-jeong as Ye-ji, Zo In-sung as Sang-woo in Possible Love —Courtesy of Netflix Lee Chang-dong’s delicate yet sturdy drama Possible Love —premiering here at the Venice Film Festival, hitting theaters Oct.

23 and streaming on Netflix Nov.

6—is a movie about figuring out how to function in the world.

If that description seems confoundingly vague, Lee’s movie is not.

It shows us a world where people feel lost after losing their livelihood, where individuals strive to connect with others despite differences of class and temperament, where tenderness ultimately has more power than arrogance.

It’s a movie with a gentle, generous spirit.

Lee opens the picture with a funeral, or, rather, a small family piling into their car to get to the funeral venue.

Wife and mother Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon) wonders if she’s wearing the right dress, and the shoes she has chosen, a pair she hasn’t worn in a long time, are already pinching her feet.

Her husband, Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu), says little—so little that it’s clear he’s filled with dread over whatever awaits him at this upcoming, obviously unhappy social event.

Their extremely quiet young son (Jung Seop) sits in the back seat, amusing himself by dangling an empty chip bag out the window like a windsock.

“It’s flying,” he says, just before letting it go—he’s not the only one feeling the oppressiveness of that car ride.

It’s never expressly spelled out who this funeral is for, but we can intuit that it’s one of Ho-seok’s former work colleagues.

It turns out that Ho-seok is one of many workers who not so long ago lost his job at a large corporation, SP, and he hasn’t yet recovered, either financially or emotionally.

Mi-ok is doing the best she can—she holds down a menial factory job—but her husband’s depression and excessive drinking is getting to her.