| Telling a story of two strangers who meet by chance in an elevator, The Intimate follows their journey through the day and night (which doesn't seem to end by the way), as they discover about each other, and about themselves in the process. Kinda like Before Sunrise in its treatment, the lovers, nameless except known as Boy (Jo Dong-Hyuk) and Girl (Sung Hyun- Ah), play the usual courtship mind games, playing coy, being aggressive, taking turns to bust each others chops as they fall into each other's arms. Sounds like your typical romance movie, no? At certain points the usual elements are there, like plot devices romanticizing a bench and hand drawn pictures, and the mushy things lovers whisper to the ears of another. Clichéd highlights include one needing to leave the country the next day, and the other being engaged to someone else, and now both of them, by Fate, are presented a chance to do something totally different. But in this story, it managed to take aged old questions of doubt, and weave a compelling movie around them. The basic question will be what is love. Is it supposed to be long drawn and lasting a lifetime, or is the feeling actually made up of short passionate bursts? And after being with someone for so long, is it a question of being afraid to leave the comfort zone of familiarity, or does it boil down truly to faithfulness? The nagging fear of being about to marry someone, and then you meet your soulmate - what do you do? Blame the person for turning ... |
