Park Chan-wook makes a clever, funny erotic thriller whose romance survives all the plotting. Kim Min-hee and Kim Tae-ri give it feeling, even when the camera seems too pleased with what it can show.
Erotic thrillers can become tiresome when every touch has to announce danger. The Handmaiden has a better use for desire: it makes us care what happens to the people doing the deceiving. Park Chan-wook and co-writer Chung Seo-kyung adapt Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith into a clever, funny film with a romance worth taking seriously. The schemes are elaborate, but the attraction between the women gives us a reason to keep track of them.
Kim Tae-ri’s Sook-hee and Kim Min-hee’s Lady Hideko give that attraction enough warmth to compete with the narrative tricks. Neither performance feels confined to the business of keeping secrets, and their chemistry makes the possibility of trust interesting. We were more moved than we expected by the tenderness between them in the sex scenes. The actresses make curiosity about each other palpable; there are people here discovering what they want, even when Park is being conspicuously careful about how they look.
Ryu Seong-hie’s production design makes the Gothic mansion worth examining closely, with elaborate furnishings that give the eye plenty to do. The attention paid to possessions suits a story in which a fortune is at stake. Cho Sang-kyung’s costumes are equally useful: the characters’ concern with appearances extends to what they wear. Set in 1930s Korea under Japanese occupation, the film makes class and Korean-Japanese relations part of its account of who gets to exercise control.
Chung Chung-hoon’s cinematography gives clothes, objects and bodies a similarly exacting scrutiny. That makes the film pleasurable to look at, and occasionally exposes its chief weakness. Park wants the women’s desires to matter, yet some of the sex is arranged so insistently for inspection that the performers’ intimacy has to compete with the camera. We do not object to its explicitness. We object to the moments when looking at the women seems to interest the film more than letting them respond to each other.
Editors Kim Jae-beom and Kim Sang-bum keep the complicated plotting clear enough that following it remains a pleasure. There is time to enjoy a discovery before the film asks us to prepare for another. At 145 minutes, it does occasionally linger over a complication after its interest has passed, though the humour helps. Jo Yeong-wook’s score supports the romance through all this manoeuvring, encouraging us to take the feelings seriously even when the plot is being mischievous.
The wit belongs to the characters as well as the plotting, and Park avoids making the women’s attraction a joke. His relish for the grotesque is less consistently helpful, sometimes making the struggle against male control feel crudely drawn. The writing is sharper when people are trying to outwit one another and cruelty has not taken over the scene. The women’s performances usually restore some feeling before the nastiness becomes tiresome.
Set aside an evening when there is enough patience for an intricate thriller. The explicit sex and cruelty deserve attention as caveats, especially if the period romance is the main attraction. Choose it with someone who enjoys a love story but does not require the people in it to behave respectably.
