My PS Partner (2012)
My PS Partner
7.8
- Director
- Byun Sung-hyun
- Cast
- Ji Sung, Kim Ah-joong, Shin So-yul, Kang Kyung-jun, Kim Sung-oh
- Info
- Romance/Melodrama, Comedy | Korea | 114 min | 2012-12-06
It's been a while since I encountered an R-rated film, the first since 'In the House.' In the meantime, well, since I hadn't really watched movies at all it's a bit ambiguous, but if you ask why I happened to choose this one to watch after so long, I really have nothing to say. It's just that I'd kept wanting to see it, got a chance to watch it by happenstance, and I simply grabbed that chance. The causality is hard to explain. The conclusion is that I liked this film a great deal and it gave me more to think about. Maybe because it gave me more to talk about...
'Marriage is reality'—I've really, really often heard that saying. This film isn't about 'marriage,' but it shows early on that 'cohabitation,' living together, is no different from marriage. Very intensely. Through a couple's fight, it appeals to the importance of reality. The woman has a job and earns money, but the man, on the grounds that he does music, doesn't earn money and just stays home; the woman comes home and tells the man. That he has to think about reality. But the man fires back. Asking whether she doesn't trust him. And with that, he throws and smashes the expensive-looking guitar the woman gifted him. The film begins like that, and showing the past and then presenting again the present after the breakup, the film develops the story through some woman's 'phone sex.'
A stranger woman's phone sex—that woman, by not dialing her boyfriend's number correctly and misdialing the last digit, begins a relationship with Hyeon-seung. After an awkward first encounter, the two hang up, and then the relationship between So-yeon and Hyeon-seung, and between Yoon-jeong and Seung-jun, is drawn. In So-yeon and Hyeon-seung's relationship, depicting the moment right after their breakup, Hyeon-seung is hurt again, and to vent that hurt he calls Yoon-jeong, who had done 'phone sex' with him the day before. Just then, Yoon-jeong, disappointed in Seung-jun because it wasn't the proposal she'd been expecting, and feeling down, ends up taking the call. At first they shout and fight, but gradually they calm each other's moods and open their hearts, confiding the problems with their own lovers.
Hyeon-seung, blocked by a 'wall of reality,' came to choose a breakup. Of course that choice wasn't 100% of his own will, but to some degree money worries were the biggest problem. How severe was it, that what he says when he meets So-yeon, who now has a new boyfriend, is 'does the new guy earn a lot of money.' However, this question can't help but be too serious to brush off simply. Even now, dozens of times a day, worrying about what work I'll do to make a living later is because living requires an appropriate amount of money. Living on 100,000 won a month would be such a grueling thing. To do what you want to some degree, to raise a child, and to buy something because you want to bring new things into the home, you have to earn money. To be unemployed for life I'd need to have about 2 billion won in assets, but even adding up my whole family's total assets wouldn't reach 2 billion won.
The story goes on like that, with the two becoming each other's 'soulmates,' and even after receiving a marriage proposal from Seung-jun and hearing from So-yeon a request to get back together, the two, unable to forget each other, confirm their love at Yoon-jeong's wedding, and the two part ways. After that, through a call Yoon-jeong makes to Hyeon-seung on the radio, the film ends while hinting at their reunion.
Since I've never once talked about ratings, I'll talk about my feelings unrelated to the rating. One of the things that allowed this film to earn fairly favorable reviews from people was precisely its 'sense of reality.' The 'realistic situation' to which no couple can be an exception was used as material from the very start of this film. But calling a 'realistic situation' mere material seems far too inadequate. This should be called life itself. This film thoroughly shows the wall of reality that people in their late 20s to early 30s now feel. In a society where dual incomes have become the norm—in other words, in a situation where earning alone leaves you scraping by—when one side doesn't earn money and only does what looks like 'fooling around,' even waiting it out is one year at most; you can't just keep waiting like that for 4 or 5 years. So-yeon seems to have expressed that sentiment really desperately, and Seung-hyeon expressed earnestly the injustice of having what he does be seen as 'fooling around.' By throwing the guitar he was gifted.
Another sense of reality, 'marriage'—in Yoon-jeong and Seung-jun's relationship, it shows a difference in perspectives on marriage. Of course, considering that the story unfolds on the premise that it's entirely the man's fault, rather than calling it a difference in perspective, it'd be more accurate to call it 'a woman with a boyfriend who's reached marriageable age.' Yoon-jeong had the intention of marrying Seung-jun. But Seung-jun doesn't propose as Yoon-jeong wishes, and worse, the situation is shown where he even has an affair with another woman. Seung-jun doesn't know that fact, but Yoon-jeong knows and doesn't say it, deciding to give him one more chance. However, for Yoon-jeong, who even quit the company she was working at because of Seung-jun, a boyfriend like Seung-jun becomes a very untrustworthy presence. Yoon-jeong went so far as to quit her company because of her boyfriend, and with voices around her saying why she still hasn't married, the woman's heart comes to be in a wavering state. This is a problem not just for this film's protagonist but one that most Korean women experience. When the marriageable age comes, you become easily swayed, and comparing yourself to others, you shrink yourself. Not everyone is like that, but many women go through this. If even a man like me finds this kind of situation looking all too familiar, then I think this film really depicted reality well.
There's this sense of reality, but on the other hand there are unrealistic aspects too. Would there be a woman who, having changed her phone, misdials her boyfriend's number, and then, because the person she ended up having phone sex with threatens her, just backs off like that? And no matter how much the man who called acts pitiful, for women who instinctively value a sense of 'stability' in a situation, I'd think they shouldn't welcome a stranger man's call—so in that respect this film is really unrealistic. The fortunate thing is that those unrealistic elements conversely reinforced the 'realistic points.'
The second thing I want to praise highly is the candid conversation. With the woman friend I usually 'converse' with, I haven't yet raised things to the level of the film's protagonists (it's a personal wish of mine), but I've thought more than once or twice that it would be really nice to be able to talk about everything as comfortably as in this film. Talking with people online feels off-putting because there's a lot those people don't know about me, but if I could talk like the film's protagonists with people I've actually had some degree of friendship with, I think my heart would feel a bit lighter. I think I could also resolve to some degree the things I'm curious about.
I did pick this film as one of the films to watch together this time, but since I ended up choosing many films while searching, this film might get pushed to the back. Well, if I get to watch movies all day, it'd be nice to see this film too, but if not, this film seems likely to become one I'll watch alone and be done with, which leaves a touch of regret. Please, I wish I could get to watch movies all day....
Comments 0
No comments yet. Be the first.