Review | Berlin 2022: The Novelist’s Film movie review – Hong Sang-soo’s featherweight tale of human interaction, starring Lee Hye-young and Kim Min-hee

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo’s new feature celebrates the beauty of chance encounters and the creative results it can lead to

Mostly simply shot in black and white, Hong’s film is delicately told, using gentle coincidence and good humour as its main focus

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Kim Min-hee in a still from The Novelist’s Film, directed by Hong Sang-soo and co-starring Lee Hye-young. Photo: Jeonwonsa Film Co. Production

Published: 7:00pm, 16 Feb 2022Updated: 7:10pm, 16 Feb 2022

3.5/5 stars

South Korean director Hong Sang-soo returns to the Berlin International Film Festival for the third consecutive year. Following 2020’s The Woman Who Ran and 2021’s Introduction, two films which won best director and best screenplay, respectively, this latest competition entry is a quicksilver tale of chance and creativity.

The novelist in question is Kim Jun-hee (Lee Hye-young, star of the prolific Hong’s other 2021 movie In Front of Your Face). A well-respected writer, she has come to visit an old friend, now running a bookstore outside Seoul.

After spending a pleasant few hours together, Kim is ready to return to the city when she randomly bumps into a film director and his wife in a tower overlooking the Han River. They had a little business together in the past and resentments linger. But this slightly awkward encounter leads to another, this time with a young actress named Kilsoo (Kim Min-hee, who starred in The Woman Who Ran).

While the director chides her for living outside the city, allowing her career to flounder, the novelist finds herself sticking up for this young actress she has never met. “Everyone chooses the life they want,” she says.

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