Now that police brutality has become ubiquitous in your social media stream as sadistic cops in Minneapolis, Buffalo, Louisville, Austin, NYC, LA, and "name that city" are seen engaging in all sorts of unprovoked violence at the anti-racist protests that have literally swept the world, Lee Kyoung-mi's political thriller The Truth Beneath feels almost quaint with its corrupt political campaign of murder, kidnapping, deception, and power-grabbing. (You mean only a handful of people do the devil's work?) Yet the film's protagonist — a distraught mother (Son Ye-jin) who realizes she didn't really know her only child (Shin Ji-hoon) despite their chummy rapport — isn't on a journey confronting the evils of patriarchal, white-supremacist capitalism. She's more like Alice chasing the rabbit down the hole into the world of weirdness.
So... Newsflash! Her daughter's in a quirky girl band, fraternizes with peers with matching haircuts, has her room bugged by her dad's primary political rival, and stars in a few arty videos shot by her adoring schoolmates. Mom herself too has her stranger side which includes self-mutilation to get what she wants and mutilating an art installation with a pink acoustic guitar when she doesn't. Whether the husband/father (Kim Ju-hyuk) will end up an elected official is weirdly not central to the story despite the race being referenced regularly. When everyone's engaged in despicable behavior, who gives a hoot who wins? Politicians will fail us once again.
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