Director Park Chan-wook's first film in six years is described in the MIFF guide like so: “After lamenting the lack of interesting cases in Busan, scrupulous detective Hae-joon lands a whale – a possible homicide – when he’s enlisted to investigate the death of a man whose body is found at the bottom of a cliff. The prime suspect is the man’s beautiful Chinese wife, Seo-rae, who is suspiciously unmoved by the events that have left her widowed. But Hae-joon’s interest in the woman quickly transcends the professional, and she appears to reciprocate his nascent desire. Things are about to get complicated.”
Park Chan-wook's “Decision to Leave” was actually my most anticipated film of last year, and although the film was finished and ready, due to the global pandemic, it was decided to delay its release until 2022 to give the film its best possible chance to succeed in this current climate. Now the film is finally here, so did it live up to my lofty expectations?
“Decision to Leave” sees Park Chan-wook tackling much lighter fare than is the the norm for this very talented South Korean director. The film is a romantic thriller that is essentially a riff on Alfred Hitchcock's “Vertigo”, although the first half of “Decision to Leave” is much lighter and comedic than anything seen in that earlier classic. Whilst I have nothing against a director trying new things, in fact I applaud it, but if I am honest, I was a little taken aback by the initial tone of the film. I was expecting a very serious and dark thriller, the kind Park has made a name for himself in, so it took me a little while to actually get into “Decision to Leave” and become fully engaged. The tone of the film wasn't the only change from the norm for Park, as I think “Decision to Leave” is the most visually subdued film I have seen from him yet. Do not get me wrong, it is a beautiful looking film that is instantly recognisable as a Park film, and he directs the hell out of the film (including some choices that are very audacious that I will talk about soon), but his films are usually so exquisitely designed that they almost expose the cinematic artifice in their creations. Purists or critics may complain that these films are “over-designed” but I absolutely love the look of his films and consider him to be one of the best visual stylists working in cinema today. “Decision to Leave” is still very stylised but is much more naturalistic compared to his previous films. Whether it was a conscious decision by Park to tone down his visuals this time, or it was the result of him coming off a television series (“The Little Drummer Girl” starring Florence Pugh) where his style was naturally pared back, or if it is due to this being the first film since 2003's “Oldboy” that he is not working with Chung Chung-hoon as his cinematographer, I do not know. This is more an observation rather than a criticism, because the film still looks fantastic.
As I said above, Park's direction is one of the highlights of “Decision to Leave” with him finding a number of different and interesting ways to relay information to the audience. My absolute favourite moments are during Hae-joon's surveillance of Seo-rae when he stakes out her house on a nightly basis. The way Park presents the information Hae-joon sees through his binoculars is just brilliant and I am not sure I've ever seen it done this way before. He starts normally with a shot of Hae-joon looking through the binoculars, and then cuts to images of him walking through Seo-rae's apartment, staring at things intently, looking for clues, whilst he obviously goes unnoticed by her (since he isn't really there). It was such an interesting way to do it, and I loved this choice, and he does a similar thing with the phone conversations between himself and Seo-rae, where they are shot in the same room together, as if they were having a face-to-face conversation. He also comes up with a lot of unusual point of view shots from such things as an urn, a smart phone, and even a dead man's eye which has an ant crawling over it. Like I said, Park directs the hell out of the film, but I feel he had to due to the lacklustre script he was working with. Some of the dialogue is incredibly benign and the story really lacks thrust; it kind of meanders along and rarely builds up momentum to make the film as exciting as it really should be. The fact that the film is overlong too doesn't help, as it sags in the middle while treading water for a bit.
In terms of acting, Chinese actress Tang Wei is outstanding as Seo-rae and you can never take your eyes off of her when she is onscreen. While she is no doubt very beautiful, she is such a dynamic actress that just makes you feel whatever her character is going through. Sadly, the same cannot be said for her male counterpart, as Park Hae-il gives a flat, almost lifeless performance as Hae-joon, and really is the biggest weakness of “Decision to Leave”. His character is meant to go through a range of emotions over the course of the film, as he has the largest arc, but he fails to convince throughout. He seemed to have a handle on the earlier, lighter scenes, but really struggled when his character was meant to be in the throes of depression, but all Park Hae-il could muster was putting on a stony sad face. This is where “Decision to Leave” really misses an actor like Choi Min-sik or Song Kang-ho (who starred in Park Chan-wook films “Oldboy” and “Thirst” respectively) in the lead role. Whilst those two actors are probably too old for this role, I mean more in terms of the calibre of actor.
For a romantic thriller to really work also, the two leads need to have fantastic chemistry, and the romance itself must have some heat. You need to feel that these characters love each other so much, and are hot for each other, that they will do anything to be with each other. Sadly the romance between Seo-rae and Hae-joon has no heat at all to it; they come across as a couple of nervous school kids on a first date rather than two adults so hot for each other that they will commit adultery to be together. The romance is almost chaste, which is not a compliment. Tang Wei does her best, but there is just no chemistry between her and Park Hae-il, which is a huge disappointment when you see just how fantastic her scenes are with Tony Leung in “Lust, Caution”. I am not expecting “Decision to Leave” to be as sexually explicit as that film, but please make me believe that there is at least some lust between them.
I know that this review has a very negative slant towards it, and you would be forgiven if you thought I actually hated “Decision to Leave”, but I really didn't. It is actually a very entertaining thriller, that has been superbly directed, but I was just expecting so much more, especially from Park Chan-wook, and because of that I seem to be harsher on him than I would other filmmakers. I thought the thriller and detective aspects worked really well, particularly the revelation late in the second half, but again even then there are some weird plot conveniences that really rub me the wrong way too. I have to question the bit where Seo-rae basically narrates all of her thoughts and records them on her smart-phone; who does this in real life?!?!? Yes, it works well for the end of the film, but it never rang true for me and left a slight sour taste in my mouth in what is a pretty good ending.
Overall, I have mixed feelings about “Decision to Leave”. It has been beautifully directed but both the script and lead male performance are seriously lacking. Tang Wei does her best, and the film is always entertaining when she is onscreen, but this is a bit of a disappointment from Park Chan-wook. Again, the film is very entertaining, and I really do look forward to watching it again, but when you pare it all back, it is essentially a rehash of “Vertigo”, and should've been much, much better than it turned out to be. To be fair, the audience I saw it with seemed to enjoy it more than me, so maybe I am overly harsh and I will respond to it more on a second viewing, but I so wanted to love this and expected to, so it was a bit of a shock when I found it to be only middling.
3 Stars.
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