★★★☆☆
From Yeon Sang-ho, director of The Colony, Train to Busan, and Peninsula, comes Paradise Lost, a crime thriller that has the potential for greatness but falls short in its direction.
Penned by Yeon Sang-ho and Ryu Yong-jae, and based on the novel by Oh Seong-eun, the film follows a mystery that unfolds when Ryu Sun-woo, a son presumed dead following the disappearance of a school camping bus nine years ago, miraculously returns alive to his grieving mother, Ryu So-young. Since his disappearance, she has been using an AI version of him to cope and live on as if he never disappeared.
Sang-ho’s direction is one of the weakest aspects of the film, which is truly disappointing considering what he’s capable of.
A lot of the mistakes made feel like hiccups you would see and expect from a first-time or newer director.
“While the film’s centerpiece is a character-driven narrative, it’s still a thriller in every sense of the word.”
While the film’s centerpiece is a character-driven narrative, it’s still a thriller in every sense of the word, and its lack of execution and oversimplifications are its biggest problems.
Although the film never clarifies what the mother’s job or background is, she clearly works an office job and has no special training.
Yet there are key moments in the film, such as the soccer ball in the corner of one of the gardens or the mud on the car tires that the mother noticed without trying, and highlights them through the camera work.
The scenes are executed like something you would expect to see in Reacher. Someone who was a major and an MP in a special investigation unit, trained to notice the minor details. Not a soccer mom.
Not only does this make the character feel ungrounded, but it also spoon-feeds the audience while prying our mouths open.
It happens so often they actually create a plot hole in doing so, while simultaneously trying to set up the perfect ending.
A good thriller gives you the details subtly, allowing you to pick up on them on your own. Something you can confirm in the third-act reveal.
This makes for a smooth transition and flow throughout the story, allowing the pacing to feel balanced instead of rushed by dumping key plot points throughout.
Paradise Lost dumps these critical moments out by using the cinematography and score to make sure you don’t miss them, creating a disruption in the viewing experience that could have been avoided.
While I haven’t read the novel, the script feels as if it cut a lot of the important details out to make the ultra-tight runtime, leaving pivotal moments and scenes out. Forcing the detailed moments to feel heightened and forced rather than natural and smooth.
The interactions between Ryu So-young and Ryu Sun-woo, the mother and son, are the perfect example of this.
There is no transitional time lapse to allow them to reconnect, adjust, or even talk before the film jumps into the next plot twist, hindering the subplot that takes place and her character arc as a whole.
The film relies on monologues not only to create the emotional disconnect but also to fill in all the details that are obviously missing due to sections of the story being taken out.
“Both the score and cinematography are well-executed and brilliantly crafted.”
Despite being used for obviously painful, forced plot points, both the score and cinematography are well-executed and brilliantly crafted, even if I don’t think they were properly utilized, much like the actors and actresses themselves.
“Both Kim Hyun-joo and Bae Hyun-sung give stellar performances.”
Both Kim Hyun-joo and Bae Hyun-sung give stellar performances that are cut short and lack the opportunity to develop the characters properly and bring them to life as intended.
This creates a shortcoming in their performances, simply because they weren’t able to demonstrate the range they clearly have, despite being given enough material to showcase it.
While Paradise Lost has structural problems that hinder it from becoming the astonishing character-driven thriller it very much had the opportunity to be.
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