Mother (2009) is a movie that starts with a dance and a revenge trip to a golf course and ends with another dance. Korean director Bong Joon-ho is one of those few directors whose every movie I make a point of seeing, because you just can’t go wrong.

The movie is about a single, aging mother and her son who has a mental disability. In a small town where almost everyone knows each other, the mother character is a generally respected but mostly ignored older matriarch. She’s into mom things, like unlicensed acupuncture, and home remedies. She always has one eye on her son and the trouble he gets into.

One day, a high school girl is found murdered on the roof of a home. A detective who seems to be trying to look up her skirt at the crime scene finds himself looking into her frozen expression. These small-town cops don’t know what they’re doing, and the son soon ends up locked up for a crime he could never imagine committing.

Won Bin as Yoon Do-joon tries to focus his mind in a prison yard while being taunted by another inmate in Bong Joon-ho's Mother (2009).

Mother (Bong Joon-ho, 2009)

When compared with Bong Joon-ho’s other great crime drama, Memories of Murder (2003), patterns and themes seem to connect. Having seen Memories of Murder might actually mislead you while watching Mother in what feels like a very deliberate way. There are similar moments with completely different outcomes.

As so much of what we consider truth or fact seems to be eroding, Mother puts the needle right into the vein. How much of what we consider to be truth is what is actually objectively true or just what we want to believe? Do we value the truth or do we value our side winning? What would we do if confronted with a different reality than the one we believe in?

Moon Hee-ra as Moon Ah-jung stares into a phone that half obscures her face in a flashback scene from Mother (2009).

Mother (Bong Joon-ho, 2009)

In this movie, guilt and responsibility are moving compass needles. The causes are stretched far from their effects and what you want to happen is separated from what does happen. What you want to be true is confronted with what is true and you are left to figure out the difference. If I’m being a little vague with the details, it’s only because it’s very worth discovering those details for yourself. Especially if you’ve only seen Parasite or Snowpiercer, definitely check out the rest of Bong Joon-ho’s catalogue.

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