Sarah Knows Nothing About Movies- The Call Review

Annyeong, and indeed, haseyo to you. It’s late January, and life is still largely unexciting for some mysterious reason (hahahaglobalpandemichahaha). In order to stave off the boredom of being indoors so much, and to provide a break from the daily Zoom classes that are STILL ongoing (though this week most classes in my hagwon were finally offline, a small miracle), I of course decided to stay indoors and watch a film on my laptop. You know, for a change. I’d seen a little bit of buzz around a new Korean thriller called The Call, and, as it was a boring weekday and I will watch pretty much any Korean film available, I gave it a go.

And well, jeez, blimey Charlie wow what a rollercoaster it was. Despite a deliberately unassuming title (which is even more basic in Korean: just 콜 or ‘Call’), this is a tense psychological thriller that could even be argued to tip into horror territory. Directed by first-time feature filmmaker Lee Chung-Hyun (who is 31, and yet another reminder of how little time left I have to become that impressive myself), The Call tells the story of two women who live in the same house in differing time periods, connected by a phone that can somehow reach through time. This may not sound like the premise for the most nail-biting story ever, but, as the Netflix description reveals, perhaps unfairly, the story also involves a serial killer. Separate timelines, a magic phone, and blood. Let’s go.

Going into this film, particularly during the opening scenes, I was expecting something with a much more supernatural element than I ended up getting. We meet the main character, Seo-yeon, returning to a large, slightly run-down house in the countryside in order to visit her sick, estranged mother in hospital. Whilst staying in this house, she uncovers a secret basement with some exceptionally creepy stuff inside, including a diary of a young girl who appears to have, well, gone through some stuff. In the next scene, Seo-Yeon receives a call on the house’s landline phone (genuinely forgot the word ‘landline’ there for a minute, #millennial much?), from a girl who appears to be in extreme distress and is asking for help. The person on the other line isn’t looking for Seo-Yeon; she doesn’t even know her. But slowly, as the calls from this girl continue, it becomes apparent that she is calling from the same house, only 20 years before. Mic drop.

From this point, the two female characters, Seo-Yeon in the present and Young-Sook in the past, form a bond through these strange calls, allowing Young-Sook to reveal the extent of the abuse she’s receiving at the hands of her stepmother, a shaman. Seo-Yeon, with the advantage of the hindsight of the present day, is able to warn Young-Sook of her fate at the hands of this stepmother, and in turn, Young-Sook is able to alter Seo-Yeon’s own past by saving her and her father from the house fire that originally killed him. Because of these alterations, timelines dramatically alter, different people live and different people die. What a heart-warming, if slightly convoluted-sounding story, you might think. Friendship across the generations leading to making amends that change lives. How lovely! This is very much where I was when watching this, but something was off. There was over an hour left of the film, and we hadn’t met any serial killers yet. What’s going on here…

And it is precisely after these two timeline-altering events that things start to get a lot more bloody. I won’t spoil the whole plot of the story, but suffice to say, Seo-Yeon and Young-Sook’s bond does not remain the same as the story progresses. After the timelines have been altered, Young-Sook’s terrible life only continues, whilst Seo-Yeon gets her father back, and is able to live a happy family life. Let’s just say….Young-Sook doesn’t take this well. In fact, her response is rather stabby. The phone calling that connects the two timelines of this movie becomes sinister, menacing and ultimately life-changing, as events in the past and future intertwine into a gripping cat-and-mouse game between the film’s two main characters. As I say, I won’t spoil the ending, but the stakes have been raised so high by the film’s final minutes that you won’t be able to look away. Oh, and watch the credits. You may not like what you see, but seriously, watch them.

Whenever someone tries to explain the plots of movies with multiple timelines, things get very confusing very quickly, especially if you’re trying to conceal essential details. I hope that isn’t too much the case here, as I found the film to generally be a very easy one to follow, provided you don’t ask too many questions. Yes, I’m sure if someone were to map out exactly everything that happened along each timeline you would find a plot hole of some kind. But the joy of this film is that it isn’t a time puzzle to put together, it’s a study of two characters and their relationship to each other. It’s the same situation with the nature of this phone that can call over a 20-year time gap: how this is possible is completely irrelevant, meaning one can side-step some of the flaws in the logic or practicalities. For example, no one else ever tries to use this phone to talk to any other individual: it’s in the house with the nasty stepmother, and with Seo-Yeon’s parents, and yet none of them ever think to use this phone that is preoccupying their daughters so much. Or worry about the phone bill. But I digress. I always enjoy when films avoid over-explaining magical or supernatural elements: it leaves mystery for the audience, and allows the focus to be pulled onto the more interesting parts of the story. And here, that is absolutely the devolution of Seo-Yeon and Young-Sook’s relationship from friends into, well, pretty much predator and prey. The flip of this relationship is the film’s dramatic core, and, propelled by brilliant performances from Park Shin-Hye as Seo-Yeon (#Alive) and Jeon Jong-seo as Young-Sook, it is one that is unpredictable and deeply emotive. Jeon is particularly having a lot of fun here, playing a woman who ends up reminiscent of Alex Forrest from Fatal Attraction in her derangement, and arguably in the injustice of the situation propelling her emotions as well.

My one raised eyebrow at this film was specifically in the nature of Young-Sook’s intensity as her character turns ‘bad’, which did have undertones of the ‘woman-gets-pissed-off-and-therefore-goes-totally-batshit’ trope. In a manner weirdly similar to Fatal Attraction’s Alex, you could make the argument that Young-Sook’s initial violent behaviour and rage comes from a very legitimate response to suffering abuse. At times I felt this was undermined by just how nasty she ended up being, as though she was just some kind of inherently ‘bad egg’ all along, when the film works hard to show the difficulties of her life and her simplistic, even kind nature when we meet her. There is a question here about where her ultimate evil springs from, and I don’t know that I was satisfied with any answer.

Aside from this, the two characters are well-drawn, and played with intensity and emotion (the moment Park Shin-Hye sees her father alive again was a particularly stand out moment in terms of feels). It was also refreshing to see the movie so comfortable with telling a story almost entirely composed of female characters. I’m not sure if this is an essential element of the story- switching out the two leads for men probably would have worked just as well- which makes it all the more pleasing that it is indeed this way round. The roles of mothers/stepmothers here are more significant and probably wouldn’t survive gender-swapping as well, and I feel there is a lot to be explored in the nature of each woman’s relationship with her mother figure that I haven’t had time to get into here.

The cinematography and direction are also worth noting, as both work very subtly to indicate to us the time frame we are in, as well as playing with the level of tension through camera angles and music choices. In the film’s opening moments, I was already hiding behind my Koya plushy in expectation of a jump scare or gory reveal, but the film is cleverer than using these cheap tactics and instead turns the dial up very slowly, until the fear factor eventually reaches boiling point.

Whilst there are one or two question marks I have over characterisation, this film was a thriller in the truest sense of the word, and a well-constructed one at that. It’s exciting to know that this is director Lee’s first feature-length production, and if this is to be the general tone I will be following his work closely. The end of this movie in particular is a humdinger, one that will send you to YouTube to watch ‘The Call: ending explained’ videos (there are many) to process it. When you do, let me know what your theory was: you will be left with one, and that’s always a great sign you’ve come out of a great movie.