There’s no way around it: FAQ, the debut feature of Korean director Kim Da-Min, is a total fever dream. Here’s the pitch: elementary student Dong-chun (Park Na-eun) has a number of after school programs. These are all designed with university applications in mind, something that is so far off for the precocious and painfully shy youngster. Friendless, quiet and struggling, Dong-chun’s life turns upside when she comes across a seemingly sentient bottle of rice wine that communicates in Persian morse code. Why Persian you ask? Honestly, you wouldn’t even believe me if I could tell. Oh, and the kid is occasionally visited Teletubby-esque creatures that populate her imagination and help her make decisions. Try and make sense of that one.

Everything is getting worse all the time. You watched an Apple launch recently? iPhone whatever has a slightly bigger camera, and is designed for obsolesce at double the rate. All your favourite haunts close down, gentrified out of existence by some horrible chain that’s probably homophobic. Your choices feel progressively less impactful. My hometown is – literally – on fire.

What FAQ understands is that you still have to try. Quitting is for suckers. Believing in something – no matter how painful it might be to lose it – is worth it. The final mission is to speak out, stand up, step forward, take a leap of faith, in fact. You owe it to everyone who’s ever loved you. You owe it to yourself. The kids are going to be all right. They can speak to rice wine.

FAQ rules, but you have to be willing to go with it. It helps that the film is buoyed by Park’s wonderment filled performance. I laughed and I cried. I wanted to call my Mom. And I can’t think of more I could ask for.