A Good Lawyer's Wife: Reviews

..."A Good Lawyer's Wife" begins with an innocent but altogether unnecessary act of deceit. Yong-jak (Hwang Jeong-min), the lawyer of the film's title, is driving along an empty rural road when his path is blocked by a dead dog. After he finishes the unenviable job of clearing the carcass out of the way, he calls ahead on his cell phone and instead of telling the truth, makes up a story about being stuck in traffic.

This harmless lie speaks volumes about the series of deceptions that envelop Yong-jak and his family. During the film, almost every adult member has an extramarital affair and everyone tries to turn a blind eye to these transgressions.

Yong-jak spends more time with his mistress than at home. His wife, Ho-jong (Moon So-ri), begins meeting with a high school boy from next door. His mother (Yoon Yeo-jeong) is romantically involved with an old elementary school friend. The only one not fooling around is the father (Kim In-moon), but the feeling is that he would be too, were he not on his deathbed.

The movie, however, isn't interested in moralizing about these relationships, nor does it want to turn the whole affair into a farce. In fact, given the reality of many marriages in South Korea, where the divorce rate is on the rise and love sometimes plays a distant third or fourth to such conditions as economic status and family background, there is something oddly normal and familiar about the domestic dishonesty being portrayed.

Using this element of familiarity, Lim Sang-soo, a director who has also painfully detailed the sex lives of his characters in previous films, lets the relationships play out their consequences. And as the story develops, we come to realize that not all affairs are the same, and that some lies may be better for the people involved than others...

The strength of "A Good Lawyer's Wife" is its cast, which does a wonderful job throughout the film balancing bitterness with affection. Moon, who won critical acclaim for her role in "Oasis" last year, puts on yet another solid performance as a woman searching for a reconnection to life. Sung Ji-ru, known for playing comic characters in numerous films, makes the most of his supporting role as an alcoholic postal worker who ends up having a devastating effect on the family.

The film makes a few unexpected and awkward turns that threaten to derail the momentum of the narrative, but Lim makes everything come together for a powerful and profound ending. A tale of suburban dysfunction, "A Good Lawyer's Wife" is an involving journey that successfully brings out the affirmative and beautiful from a state of domestic collapse...