Lee Chang-dong’s drama about two couples and a documentary is patient, perceptive and worth the long evening. The performances justify the attention, even when the writing makes the connections between marriage and money too explicit.
Possible Love is an absorbing drama that earns most of its 165 minutes, though its relationships sometimes feel too carefully arranged. Lee Chang-dong brings two married couples of markedly different means together through a documentary about laid-off workers. The wealthy filmmaker’s interest in her subjects creates an opportunity for friendship, with considerable scope for misunderstanding what either side expects. The film takes those expectations seriously enough to make the awkwardness worth sitting through.
We find the documentary arrangement uncomfortable: a wealthy filmmaker acquires material from workers who have lost their jobs. Her interest may be sincere, but sincerity does little to equalise what the participants stand to gain. Lee Chang-dong and co-writer Oh Jung-mi pursue that difficulty through the couples’ personal relationships, where affection can make an unequal exchange harder to recognise. The question of what people owe one another becomes more difficult once they have reasons to enjoy one another’s company.
Jeon Do-yeon, playing Ahn Mi-ok, gives the drama its strongest claim on our attention. Her performance accommodates the competing feelings that the story needs without making them seem like a list of themes to be addressed. Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong help sustain the interest across the ensemble, essential in a film that asks this much time for two marriages. The performances make room for sympathy without requiring us to approve of everyone, and keep the economic pressures attached to recognisable human wants.
The restrained filmmaking suits these encounters. Kim Ji-yong handles the cinematography and Jang Min-woo the production design; their contributions belong to an approach that keeps the contrast in wealth from entirely overwhelming the people involved. That is important when the premise has already made the financial imbalance clear. The actors need space to complicate our understanding of the couples, and the film’s unshowy presentation allows their work to remain its principal attraction.
With Kim Da-won editing and Jung Jae-il providing the music, the drama builds its effects gradually. Much of that patience is justified: the relationships need time if friendship, envy and desire are to carry comparable weight. Some stretches nevertheless ask for more attention than they repay, and 165 minutes leaves little room to excuse repetition as necessary preparation. The accumulated force comes chiefly from the ensemble, which gives us a reason to stay interested when the pace becomes demanding.
The more substantial reservation concerns the writing’s occasional insistence on making its connections plain. Lee Chang-dong and Oh Jung-mi bring marriage, unemployment and the ethics of documentary filmmaking into close contact, but the arrangement sometimes feels too convenient. As the drama develops, its explanations can reduce the uncertainty that made the relationships interesting in the first place. These are intermittent problems, though they matter in a film whose strongest quality is its willingness to consider people without immediately settling what to think of them.
As a domestic drama, it gives money the sustained attention that stories about desire sometimes avoid. As a film about filmmaking, it takes seriously the difficulties of turning somebody else’s circumstances into material. Both concerns benefit from performances strong enough to hold our interest through the slower passages, although a little less explanation would help. Give it an evening when a difficult conversation sounds more inviting than a quick resolution.
