‘The Novelist’s Film’ Review: Another Mischievous, Meandering Conversation on Life, Art and Drinking From Hong Sangsoo
variety.comGuy Lodge Film CriticHaving long been mired in a writer’s block that she fears might be terminal, celebrated novelist Junhee decides the solution is to try another medium altogether, and sets out make a film.
She has an actor, and a cinematographer, but no clear idea of what her film should be about — and that’s okay, she decides, since it will all emerge in time. “Isn’t it too offhand?” a poet friend challenges her. “Don’t you need something to pull people in?” Thus, and not for the first time, does South Korea’s one-man film factory Hong Sangsoo send up his own oeuvre in his 28th feature “The Novelist’s Film,” another gently circuitous, conversation-driven charmer sharing Junhee’s view that “the story is not that important” — but containing more incident and emotion than initially meet the eye.
All Hong films are tangrams to an extent, arriving at slightly different forms from the same foundational pieces. “The Novelist’s Film” is no exception, repurposing multiple narrative, thematic and stylistic elements from its predecessors, but culminating in a mood of quizzical artistic self-interrogation that still feels spry and distinct — with at least a trick or two added to the director’s rumpled, well-worn bag.
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