Little Forest: And Then She Cooked

Creators who think there is one right way of doing things aren't creators at all. They're low-ranking soldiers and well-behaved clerks who happen to work in art. So here's to director Yim Soon-rye and his Little Forest, a fascinating little film about a 20-something who retreats home after failing to make it in the big city. Seeking conflict? There aren't any major confrontations between the characters. How about romance? No sparks fly between the ingenue (Kim Tae-ri) and either of her friends from high school — a young man (Ryu Jun-yeol) and a young woman (Jin Ki-joo) who don't have any chemistry between them either. Crackling dialogue? Actually, the best parts of Little Forest are the endless shots of food being prepared with allusive voiceover. And yet, despite all these "shortcomings," Little Forest is a movie that definitely works.

You'd be surprised how much can be conveyed by drying persimmons and frying cabbage pancakes and hand-delivering creme brulee. The long stretches of narration (which one can easily imagine being written off as "too talky" in a screenwriting class) inform us that our heroine's passion for cooking has been inherited from her mom (Moon So-ri), a single parent who wasn't always there when she was needed but maybe was there for her daughter enough. And as art goes, it's more than enough. It's delicious.