To be a woman is to be a tightly-coiled spring, and that’s something this film understands, and is ultimately what carries it through to the end: Jung Yu-mi performs a masterclass in restrained chaos and quiet disintegration.
“Kim Ji-young, Born 1982” is two stories at once: it’s the story of a marriage, and the story of a woman.
Jung Yu-mi’s Ji-young and Gong Yoo’s Dae-hyun are two comets in each other’s orbit, never quite meeting. This isn’t to say there isn’t love there — there is, there just isn’t connection. Dae-hyun is the ever recognizable kind husband, always attentive to solve his wife’s problems, and it’s so easy to give in to his charm, Gong Yoo’s natural likability as an actor notwithstanding. But it’s Yu-mi who takes the reins in this film.
Truth be told, its cinematography isn’t really anything special, but it doesn’t need to be. And everything Ji-young lives through isn’t particularly revelatory, especially for any woman living in the modern world — what woman hasn’t been passed over in favor of a more mediocre man in the workplace, what woman hasn’t felt some form of fear in public transportation when hounded by strange men.
It’s far from a perfect film, but stories of women’s struggles told in honest light don’t come often, and maybe that’s also what makes it a triumph. Women have always been complicated, and perhaps it’s time that stories about them finally reflect that, too. For its shortcomings, “Kim Ji-young, Born 1982” feels quietly revolutionary.
