The 24th feature from Hong Sangsoo, The Woman Who Ran follows Gamhee—played by Hong’s regular collaborator and real-life partner Kim Minhee (On the Beach at Night Alone)—who has three separate encounters with friends while her husband is on a business trip. Youngsoon (Seo Youngwha) is divorced, has given up meat and likes to garden in her backyard. Suyoung (Song Seonmi) has a crush on her architect neighbor and is being hounded by a young poet she met at the bar. Woojin (Kim Saebyuk) works for a movie theater. Their meeting is polite, but strained. Before long, their shared history bubbles to the surface.
As usual, Hong allows the most minimal interactions to carry surprising weight, and uses subtle and sly narrative repetition to evoke a world of circular motion. The Woman Who Ran also features one of Hong’s most expert comic set pieces, a neighborly argument about stray cats that gets to the heart of the filmmaker’s lovingly crafted world of thwarted connections and everyday dysfunction.