Lee Jong-pil's romance Pavance is a movie that sneaks up on you. Two department store laborers -- the gregarious Park Yo-han (Byun Yo-han) and the withdrawn Lee Gyeong-rok (Moon Sang-min) become best buddies for no other reason than they both wore David Bowie T-shirts one day. Weirder set-ups have led to lifelong friends, ultimately. Yo-han chases after life while running away from his past. Gyeong-rok finds an unlikely soulmate in Kim Mi-jeong (Ko Ah-sung), an awkward, grubby delivery person who is even more of a social outcast than him.
Eventually the three form an improbable trio with incongruent dreams: Yo-han wants to be a rock star who also happens to be a best-selling novelist; Gyeong-rok wants to be modern dancer and practices in an underground parking lot; and Mi-jeong wants to be a cool grandma who lets the kids get away with murder. (Not literally) Admittedly, Lee's film resorts to some extreme plot points (a coma, a celebrity father who disowns his kid, a vehicular accident, a snow storm) but everytime the story went off the rails, Lee managed to find a way to get it back on track fairly quickly. Pavance is one of those movies for which you feel compelled to make allowances because when it's good, it's very much so. The emotional truths keep coming up to the surface. The sentimental tears keep flowing from my eyes.
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