Review | Cannes 2022: Next Sohee movie review – Kim Si-eun, Bae Doona face social outrage in gritty drama by A Girl at My Door director July Jung
- Next Sohee is a condemnation of the exploitation and abandonment of young people in South Korea by employers, schools and the authorities alike
- Kim puts in a powerful performance as a student crushed by her work at a call centre. Bae is the jaded detective who investigates her demise and seeks justice
4/5 stars
In 2014, July Jung jolted audiences at the Cannes Film Festival (and then elsewhere) with A Girl at My Door, a gritty social drama in which alcoholics and bullies of all shapes and sizes run amok in a small town in South Korea.
Returning to Cannes with her latest film, she presents villains in an even wider spectrum in society. Revolving around a student called Sohee and her spiralling life as a call centre worker, Next Sohee is a full-throated condemnation of the exploitation and abandonment of disfranchised young people by employers, schools and the authorities alike.
Bolstered by a quietly heart-wrenching performance from Kim Si-eun (Love Alarm), Next Sohee is a powerful takedown on common preconceptions of South Korea as a wonderland for pretty faces. Tracking its protagonist’s transformation from a vociferous teenager to a desolate wreck, Jung has offered a scything look of society as a black hole for the young.
Next Sohee is delineated into two halves that could be described as the “personal” and the “political”.
Bubbly, boisterous and with her heart set on becoming a dancer, the protagonist originally sees her work at a call centre as more of a distraction than employment. She is soon dismayed by the chore of entertaining abusive callers, and she balks at the way she is ordered to stall requests for help. The working day gets longer and her pay is docked.
Her self-confidence is shot as she is reduced to a number on performance charts, and her mental state disintegrates as she witnesses the doom and destruction brought about by bad corporate practice – on others, and finally her own.
She storms corporate offices, schools and government departments in her pursuit for justice for Sohee and all those youngsters who have their fiery spirits and futures crushed by what one of these culprits dismisses as “reality”.
Just as much as Yoo-jin, Jung has stirred up a stink with a film that’s visceral to the extreme in revealing the dark dealings that make an economy click, and a steep warning about the possibilities of more Sohees to suffer from such indignity and injustice.
