Kim Donghwa (Ha Seong-guk) dates Junhee (Kang Soyi), and three years into the relationship, he finally meets her family. Some of the conversations, like the one with her father Oryeong (Kwon Hae-hyo), have a surprisingly casual air. Donghwa marvels at the idea of Oryeong landscaping the entirety of a suburban home up on a mountain. The same goes with her mother Choi Sunhee (Cho Yun-hee), a poet whose fame is smaller than his. Other conversations, though, are more typical, like when her sister Neunghee (Park Mi-so) asks about what’s good about Junhee. Neunghee also keeps bringing up Donghwa’s father, an attorney, which becomes a sticking topic during these conversations.

Oryeong’s scenes remind viewers of triple threat Hong Sang Soo’s fascinations towards the mundane and rewards us. Talking about landscaping may be boring or interesting, depending on obvious things like context or whoever is discussing it. But perhaps, discussing something deceptively mind numbing is a set within itself, as if Oryeong’s judging Donghwa’s reactions. Art films inherently contain that paradox where everything is happening even if it does not seem that way. Instinct and the subconscious are at play in a scene where maybe all Oreyong talks about whatever he wants. What Does That Nature Say To You has a lot of possibilities that it deliberately, thankfully, narrows down.

This image is released by Ritual Films

There’s something universal about What Does That Nature Say To You even if meeting someone’s parents is something I’m not sane enough for. There is enough media depicting protagonists meeting their romantic partner’s parents, the most popular being the Meet the… franchise. And more recently, there are scenes one can watch in Netflix reality guilty pleasures like Love is Blind. In both film and reality TV, the father, regardless of their demeanor, is on the forefront of these conversations. But Hong switches up the archetypes and shows what happens when other family members like Neunghee take that kind of control. This film makes things interesting by capturing different vessels of interrogation. In layman’s terms, Asian women use their voices to perfect the art of dragging. And as someone who only saw two of Hong’s other films, there’s an enjoyable meanness his work. Meanness, like many things, is inherently funny.

The Kim-Choi family’s obsession with Donghwa’s father is a sticking point in What Does That Nature Say To You. It reminds viewers of the obvious thing about what the film does or doesn’t show, Donghwa’s father a ghostly man. The contrast between how Hong depicts this tension differs from reality TV’s heavy handed use of, say, music choices. Everything is more minimal here which makes Donghwa’s alcohol induced crash out against Neunghee much bigger. The film captures all of this drama as well with Kubrickian zoom outs and blurred focus like a damaged microscope. I meant that previous sentence as a compliment as Hong depicts big tensions within detailed and miniature framing.

Film lovers can watch What Does That Nature Say To You in select theatres in major Canadian cities.