Once We Were Us: A Timeless Tale of Tragic Love Reviewed

Once We Were Us (PG13) 114 minutes, opens on Jan 22 ★★★★☆ The story: On a flight to South Korea, former lovers Lee Eun-ho (Koo Kyo-hwan) and Han Jeong-won (Moon Ga-young) meet by coincidence after a 10-year separation. Through a series of flashbacks to 2008, their relationship is charted, from their first meeting to turbulent romance, with each navigating the other’s emotional fragilities in the midst of a national economic crisis. Fans of the 2018 romance Us And Them can relax: This South Korean adaptation of the Chinese hit stands confidently on its own, featuring a reworked coming-of-age element grounded in the grinding economic conditions of 2008 in Seoul. Director Kim Do-Young (Kim-Ji-young, Born 1982, 2019) extracts powerful performances from both leads as they transition from naive college-age teens to adults over the course of the film. It is enough to say the couple begin in a happy place and, as it usually goes with these films, it ends not quite at the other end of the emotional spectrum , but close to it . The use of flashbacks to 2008 offers a study of heartbreak happening in slow motion. When Jeong-won makes Eun-ho promise to never leave, viewers will instinctively brace themselves for the worst. The framing device of reminiscing in the present day shrouds the happiest recollections in a melancholic haze. There is also suspense: When will the wheels come off the bus? As in the best tearjerkers, when it all falls apart, it feels inevitable and earned. That and other romance tropes abound – she is the muse who encourages him to chase his dreams, he is the stable presence that fills a family-shaped hole in her life – but under director Kim’s steady hand, it never feels syrupy, nor too on the nose. The film’s real strength lies in its smart dissection of the tragic irony at the heart of young love: Those who fall hardest are the least equipped to deal with its complications. It was true of Romeo and Juliet then, and is true of Jeong-won and Eun-ho today. Hot take: The film delivers a smart dissection of love’s tragic irony, earning its tearjerker moments through emotionally grounded storytelling. Rental Family (M18) 120 minutes, opens on Jan 22 ★★★★☆ The story: Brendan Fraser plays Phillip, a washed-up American actor living in Tokyo. After taking on a role to play a “sad American” at a Japanese funeral, he is recruited by Rental Family, a company providing professional hourly stand-in services for strangers seeking companionship. Even after seven years in the Japanese capital, Phillip still feels like a gaijin (Japanese for outsider), making him the ideal candidate to be the “token white guy” for the titular company operated by Shinji (Takehiro Hira). According to Shinji, he “sells emotions” to clients and helps them connect to what is missing. Renting companions helps people cope with mental health, which is a taboo topic in Japan, he explains. Though initially sceptical, Phillip soon embraces his new career. One of his main jobs is portraying a reporter doing a retrospective on famous actor Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), a scenario created by Kikuo’s daughter to appease her father who has dementia. Another job that Phillip is committed to is playing dad to young Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), whose American father has been absent since her birth. Mia’s mother needs a stand-in spouse to help Mia get into a prestigious school that ostracises single mums. Fraser delivers empathy and vulnerability as the lonely Phillip, one who is also in need of companionship in a foreign land. The Japanese ensemble actors are also commendable – in particular, Gorman, whose genuine chemistry with Fraser further uplifts the film. Japanese director Hikari offers a gentle, non-judgmental exploration into the unconventional rent-a-family industry. She also handles the themes of loneliness, grief and purpose with much wit and warmth.