A Hometown in Heart: A Tale of Two Mothers

Requiring a child performer for your lead character is always dangerous in a movie. What if the kid is too precious, too self-conscious, can't act? Well, there goes the movie! But no such blight mars A Hometown in Heart, Yoon Yong-kyo's exquisite coming-of-age film helmed by Min Yu, a fine young actor who gives the kind of nuanced performance that any seasoned pro would envy. As a young boy learning the ways of Buddhist monkhood while awaiting the doubtful return of his wayward mother, Min radiates a youthful optimism when he isn't suffering the injustices of childhood. Bored and browbeaten, he's looking for a way out of the stifling atmosphere in which he's being raised. And who are the adults around him who might provide assistance? A overly stern monk (Byeon Ki-jong) who mistakes seniority for wisdom; a good-natured laborer (Oh Heon-yong) who confuses serial lying for kindness; and a distraught young mother (an equally understated Choi Eun-hie) who caves when confronted by institutional righteousness.

Perhaps that's a message that we still need to learn here: That being an adult doesn't make one wiser or stronger. It more often means that we've compromised our integrity as a way to get by. The sins of this youth — of Youth in general — are generally those of the uninformed, or at worst of the well-intentioned but not fully considered. Whether this young boy will eventually reunite with his birth-mother (Min Seon-yeong) or the kind-hearted widow whose motives are complicated at best is at once the source of the drama and irrelevant. Like any great coming-of-age tale, A Hometown in Heart knows that the grown-ups are unlikely to save the day. Unless those grown-ups are director Yoon Yong-kyo and screenwriter Kwak Il-byeong.