Mother (Bong Joon-ho, 2010) ***

Dir. Bong Joon-ho
Starring Kim Hye-ja, Won Bin, Jin Ku, Jae-Moon Yoon, Na Mun-hee

The previous Bong Joon-ho film I saw was The Host, a zany monster movie that mixed family dynamics with exciting suspense sequences. Mother is a more traditional type of film. It's a thriller that runs through some fairly standard story elements and takes a few too many shortcuts along the way. However, while the central plot may be familiar, the unique performance at the center and Joon-ho's artistry elevate this to the level of a solid thriller.

Do-Joon (Won Bin) is a mentally handicapped young man who frequently gets into trouble, but is oft protected by the watchful eye of Mother (Kim Hye-Ja). One day he is accused of killing a teenage girl and a confession is forced out of him by unorthodox police tactics that take advantage of his condition. Mother does not believe her son is guilty and seeks to find out the truth about what happened, but an uncooperative police force and terrible legal representation continually thwart her efforts.

Kim Hye-Ja's performance is a wonderfully delicate balancing act. Early on, there's always a sense that something is wrong with her. However, she never overplays that aspect and keeps you wondering if she’s truly disturbed or just a misunderstood oddball who is overly protective of her son. It’s so refreshing to see an actress with the confidence to not feel the need to spell everything out for the audience. Instead, we get subtle visual moments with her eyes that give us hints. It’s a truly remarkable performance that will certainly go down as one of the very best of this year.

There are also some strongly developed suspense sequences. My favorite is when Mother tries to tip toe past a sleeping suspect while hoping that bottle of water she just knocked over doesn’t wake him up. There’s another fantastic sequence where Joon-ho uses a reverse frame technique to build suspense as Do-joon begins to remember the events of that night. The director is clearly at home here, showing off many of the same skills that made The Host such a treat.

Where the film is less successful is when it goes through the motions of the mystery plot. There's a friend of Do-joon named Jin-Tae who is usually the center of trouble. The screenplay begins using him as a transparent plot device. He becomes a super cop that suddenly is a brilliant investigator and able to beat confessions out of people. Move over, Jack Bauer! This really felt like Joon-ho struggled with figuring out how to connect the dots and made it a little too easy for his main character to figure out what was going on.

That’s unfortunate, because otherwise Mother has all the makings of a great thriller: terrific central character, eerie cinematography, building sense of hopelessness. If so much of the film hadn’t felt rushed, then we could have had an amazing accomplishment here. Instead, we have to accept that this is merely a good thriller, which is admittedly a rare enough commodity these days that it does deserve some special consideration.