Parasite

On Thursday I saw Parasite, starring Jung Ji-so and Jo Yeo-jeong.

The Kim family is poor; the Park family is rich. The Park family needs assistance running their high class household and the Kim family sees an opportunity. Soon, in devious ways, all four of the Kims are employed by the Parks doing various tasks for them, though they don't disclose they're at all related.

Soon, they've infiltrated their entire world and begin to reap the benefits in healthy salaries and access to the mansion when the Parks are away (i.e. a camping trip).

Inherently, as a girl raised in an Immigrant-led, blue collar home, my gut almost always roots for the lower class in stories such as this ... but not here. The screenplay is so good that the characters are developed in a very complex way, making the Kims less sympathetic than the Parks, who are basically decent people being taken advantage of because they're naive.

After one big event that results in a twist I can't expect anyone saw coming, all hell breaks loose and this goes from being a black comedy to a borderline campy horror film. I couldn't look away, and was definitely entertained, but I never would have put this in a Best Picture category.

So then I wondered what I was 'missing' regarding the hype surrounding this film and the only reason why I expect it's gotten such universal praise is because it's different. It's not a film with a simple formula or predictable outcomes in any way, shape or form. It's inventive, it's fast-paced and it makes you think.

But it's also not the second coming of film.

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