Korean director Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave is a dark romance that is oddly relatable to those who haven’t committed or investigated a murder. Decision to Leave is a murder mystery that is less about the mystery part than the link between its two main characters: a detective who falls in love with his main suspect.
After a mountain climber falls to his death suspiciously near Busan, the climber’s wife is brought in for questioning. After interviewing and placing the woman under surveillance the lead detective on the case gains an interest in her outside of police work. She seems to reciprocate his feelings and they begin a slow, twisted flirtation.
Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook, 2022)
The detective has trouble sleeping, but with the help of the murder suspect he sleeps perfectly. There is voyeurism, the restrained formality between investigator and suspect. Little gestures of affection, like buying a premium sushi meal for a break between questioning. And then there’s another suspicious death…
It’s easy to fall for people who aren’t right for us. Maybe even the last person you’d think it would be possible to become smitten with. And that’s a long lasting truth: we fall who we fall for, regardless of if it makes sense.
Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook, 2022)
Decision to Leave puts the question out there of whether someone can really ever know their partner, or whether we can ever believe in someone’s love completely. The movie ponders if real affection can ever be proven, or is it something you have to trust in, something closer to faith? Like falling asleep, do you have to let go of control?
Like Park Chan-wook’s other films, the film contains satisfying twists and cool, haunted loners walking a journey of bittersweet emotions and stinging regret. This one’s a bit more soft and pensive than say, Oldboy. Recommended for those who feel slightly broken in some way, or who like their romances just a little bit haunted.
Watch the trailer for Decision to Leave:
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