Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Lee Joo-young, Moon So-ri, Koo Kyo-hwan
Intro:
Maggie is like Wes Anderson collaborated with Bong Joon-ho on an episode of Scrubs.
Not enough movies open with people having sex in an X-ray room! After a picture of this intimate moment circulates around the hospital, it sets off a chain of events that are absurdist, making a gleeful lack of sense at first glance, but gradually turn out to be surprisingly dramatic and moving.
Here are some other things one can expect to see in this movie: A wedding ring that looks like the end of a Sonic The Hedgehog level, a singing catfish, a commercial starring a gorilla sans Phil Collins, sharing underwear, van-sized sinkholes opening up on the streets of Seoul, and one of the weirdest narrators of any film.
Between the incessantly symmetrical framing, the quietly insane specifics and episodic progression of plot, Maggie is like Wes Anderson collaborated with Bong Joon-ho on an episode of Scrubs. It starts by making the audience question exactly how many medical officials have risked radiation poisoning for a nooner at this hospital, and then digs its heels into all manner of bizarre imagery that basically take abstract thought processes and make them literal through the visuals.
However, while the name of the game is light quirks, the actual subject matter is morbid and confronting, rooted in some of the fundamentals behind socialisation; namely, being able to trust that the other person actually means what they’re saying. The film finds various ways of depicting the erosion of trust between people, whether it’s down to dishonesty, cynicism, and even violence. It lulls the audience into a false sense of kooky security, only to pull the rug out from under their feet, one carefully-timed pull at a time.
As much as the humour could have easily devolved into randomness for randomness sake, it maintains a certain magnetism through earnestness and clearly-not-caring-if-you’re-not-along-for-the-ride, aided by fantastic production values.
Koo Kyo-hwan and Yi Ok-seop’s script is riddled with ear-candy quips, Lee Jae-woo’s cinematography is gorgeous, and the eclectic English-language soundtrack is killer (Maxine in particular is a serious groove).
Much like the works of Bong Joon-ho, Maggie uses odd narrative ideas and developments as a Trojan horse to make sharp and biting observations about the human condition. It serves as a gripping, if bonkers, reminder that the faith we put in other people is extremely volatile, and not even the most intimate of X-rays can reveal all that’s on the inside of someone.
