Never Forever

Vera Farmiga plays an affluent woman whose life and marriage is unraveling. She and her Korean husband have been trying without success to get pregnant. Her suicidal husband has given up on the idea, but it's become an obsession with her, the one thing that will fix everything that's broken. She makes a proposition to a young Korean immigrant -- she will pay him $300 in cash every time they have sex, with an additional $30,000 in cash if she conceives.

I had my doubts before watching this film that the screenplay would be able to make this premise plausible, but it does. It sets things up in such a way that they play out honestly, without feeling overly manipulated by the hands of a screenwriter or director. It helps tremendously that Farmiga gives such a good performance -- you have to really understand her character if the movie is going to make any sense, and we do, thanks to Farmiga's commitment to the role.

Though ambiguous, the ending suggests a happy ending that DID feel implausible to me. But the rest of the movie is such a downer that I actually didn't mind it, because I just wanted something positive to happen to this poor woman.

Grade: B+

Vera Farmiga is one of those rare actors that is emotionally present in roles that require vulnerability and honesty. I remember seeing her first in that short-lived TV series "Roar." She alone among all the actors in the cast that included a young Heath Ledger seemed to project real emotions in a series that was flirting close to "Xena" territory.

So Director Gina Kim could not have found a better actor to play the role of Sophie, a woman who must make difficult choices involving two men and their respective worlds. Much will be made in Asian American circles about the intimate scenes Farmiga has with men of Asian descent. Beyond the novelty of such pairings in film, these scenes underscore one of the peculiar aspects of the movie: while the men in these scenes go through the (ahem) motions, Farmiga actually acts.

That disparity is apparent in almost every scene Farmiga has with the Asian actors. While the male leads, Jung-woo Ha and David McInnis, are dutiful journeymen in their roles, they don't reach the honesty that Farmiga is able to bare. Against Farmiga's acting, Ha's and McInnis's performances come across almost as recitation.

I can see Ha's delivery fitting seamlessly in a cutesy Korean miniseries. Someone should tell male actors not to grip their hair with both hands when the scene calls for inner turmoil. It comes off as pantomime. That "someone" should have been the director. While plot and composition worked well, I found Kim's direction of the acting lacking. Perhaps she was working within the limitations of the acting abilities of the male leads. In that particular case, she should have recast those roles.

The lapses in the direction of the actors are apparent when lines are spoken by the male leads. There is an odd stiffness to the delivery that sounds "off" to native-speakers and those of us who immigrated to the States at a young age. Something in the cadence and intonation that distinguishes someone reading Shakespeare and someone speaking as Hamlet. Ha may have had an English tutor in Korea that spent too much time in-country, because he actually does a fine job with lines he speaks in Korean. I marvel at actors who can truly act in two different languages. Sidow and Streep easily come to mind.

Kim isn't a native speaker and so she will have to develop a sensitivity to the sound of spoken English as other non-native directors have had to do. That "ear" is what she will have to develop if she is going to be casting less-gifted or less-experienced talent. Ang Lee had the same problem in his early English language movies and those actors fresh out of Juilliard. It's the difference between Jean-Pierre Jeunet directing Dominique Pinon in French and Jeunet and Pinon, respectively, in English. "Alien: Resurrection" was a just an action movie and the weird delivery by Pinon and some of the supporting cast was noticeable. (Sigourney Weaver made out on her acting chops alone.)

Thankfully, this movie is centered around Sophie and so Farmiga binds the narrative with her honest performance. The role of Sophie really could have been played by an Asian actor and the story could have been a Korean-language movie about a Korean American woman. Perhaps Kim wanted to give emphasis to Sophie's isolation and to that central dilemma of the story.

There are certain elements of Korean and Korean American culture that are played to near-caricature: the cold, oppressive mother-in-law and the zealous pastor, for instance. So, I must wonder if the story came from Kim's own deliberation about her relationships and choices she has had to make as a Korean and a Korean American.

For Farmiga, it is another remarkable performance to add to her growing body of work.

I really, really admire Vera Farmiga for taking on this project. How can you not? Allow me to explain.

If you can suspend logical disbelief while watching this film, you will be swept away. The movie had a quiet and patient, but very powerful undercurrent.

It deals so nonchalantly with something that is so uncommon in movies nowadays, that I have to make mention of it. An Asian male in honest and open sex scenes with a white female. The real achievement here is that this movie avoids the race issue altogether. The director does not turn it into some kind of elephant in the room. No, it is an elephant of our own Western making, is it not? Was anyone else shocked to see love portrayed this way, where it is truly is shown as universal, not just possible between chosen ethnic pairings? The movie did not treat it like a big deal at all. The white girl - Asian guy couples I've met in real life don't treat it like a big deal either. I believe this ethnic pairing - currently, perhaps the only interracial pairing that actually occurs less frequently in Western movies than it does in real life - will become more commonplace as the Asian cinema industry matures, as the West becomes ever-increasingly comfortable with the East, as both sides evolve towards the human average, and there are more Asian actors from which to choose.

Now that aside, let's get back to the film itself, because it is more than capable of standing proudly on its own feet without its groundbreaking nonchalant attitude towards race.

Tremendous acting, especially from Ms. Farmiga and Jung-woo Ha, the "homewrecker." The amount of emotion that these two are able to convey in nonverbal moments is truly stunning. You will be moved.

The set designs and cinematography, in addition to the beautiful actors themselves, are a visual feast - a real aesthetic treat.

The sex scenes were very tasteful and well-done. As the relationship develops, so clearly does the depth and honesty of their physical relations, to the point where Farmiga's character is able to climax by simply daydreaming about her lover.

You may know the entire plot line to this movie already, and you will still have an A+ experience watching how it was executed.

I loved this film. It defied almost all my expectations, and will probably watch it several times over the course of my life. I would recommend that anyone who decides to watch this film, too, find within themselves a fraction of Vera Farmiga's open-mindedness, boldness, and vision when she took on this project.

A standing ovation for her.

"Never Forever" is a deeply flawed movie replete with missed opportunities that whiz right past like rush hour buses in front of a motionless commuter. It is also well worth seeing, for a riveting performance by Vera Farmiga, a suggestive plot, and its treatment of unusual topics.

Sophie (Vera Farmiga), a beautiful, blonde, trophy wife, is determined to give Andrew (David McGinnis) her "master-of-the-universe," very wealthy and successful husband, the child he cannot father himself. He is infertile. Her husband is Korean, so she chases down Jihah, (Jung-Woo Ha) an illegal Korean immigrant, and offers him three hundred dollars for every time he has sex with her, and thirty thousand dollars once she gets pregnant. The two perform the act with complete alienation, but eventually develop feelings for each other.

The plot, is, of course, implausible. It reaches its height of silliness when Sophie tells Jihah she will pay him the bonus of $30,000 if she gets pregnant. Why the bonus? Would he really not have sex with this beautiful woman for three hundred dollars if he did not get the bonus? Are there other beautiful women out there offering bonuses of $25,000, and does Sophie need to remain competitive? Further, Sophie reveals no knowledge that a woman is fertile for a short window every month. Is she having sex with Jihah outside of that window of opportunity? Apparently so, because no seasons pass; all the action seems to take place during the same month.

Finally, why not just go to a sperm bank, or use a turkey baster? Indeed, why does Sophie remove every stitch of clothing? You really don't need to remove everything you've got on in order to perform the act necessary for pregnancy. The film's marketers show a healthy respect for the market appeal of nude Vera Farmiga.

Most of the action takes place in Sophie and Andrew's rich, cold, white, empty house and Jihah's squalid, lurid, red-and-green walled tenement. The director did not create enough atmosphere with these two sets. I never get a sense of Jihah's room. In one scene, it rains. That scene should have been milked for all it was worth: two strangers, separated by race and class, united for a moment, in a tiny apartment, as rain falls outside. Sigh.

Also, so much more could have been done with the sex scenes, which are rather flat and unimaginative. Sophie and Jihah connect, and transcend barriers of race and class, through this one act. I wish that they had been depicted with more eloquence.

In spite of the criticisms, this movie is well worth seeing. It isn't prurient. It's really a fairy tale about connection in spite of distance. Like a fairy tale, the film suggests and evokes more than it depicts, and the viewer's imagination is left to fill in the blanks.

"Never Forever" is also worth seeing because it is unusual. This is the only American film with a Korean-born Korean lead with a thick Korean accent that many viewers may ever see. Finally, the film is worth seeing for Vera Farmiga's riveting performance. She conveys volumes with a glance. Sophie is not very bright, and has limited strength. She sits around her gilded cage all day, while her maid cleans her house and her husband works. She's, simply, not very likable, but Farmiga makes Sophie very watchable.

Jung-Woo Ha as Jihah is also fascinating. He's not particularly good looking. He makes for a convincing illegal immigrant. He is short, slight, and wears stained t-shirts. As the film draws closer to him and spends more time with him, though, the viewer can see what is special about him, and comes to care about him – this process parallels the experience of falling in love. At first the other may come across as not that special, but as two people get closer together, they see what is special about the other.

I wantcha to know I have limited my mini-reviews to Netflix but I'm making an exception for this because I want non-Netflix people to see it too. Never Forever is a conundrum. On the one hand, really melodramatic, improbable and predictable at the same time. And yet it manifests --I would even say embodies-- a sort of filmic courage that is rare indeed.The sheer loonyness of it all somehow seems to contribute to its real strength. Perhaps it is art defying rationality. Parse it, and it more or less falls apart. But if you let it hit you, you're likely to find it memorable. The confident tone suggests to me that director Gina Kim is on the road to formidable.