On the Beach at Night Alone movie review (2017)

Unfortunately, the drama in "On the Beach at Night Alone" isn't so involving. Scenes of naturalistic small talk are fine enough, but Hong's drama grinds along whenever characters start to declaim, or make veiled proclamations about marriage and personal freedom. Watching this film feels like running into a depressed, drunk friend who can't stop himself from yelling about how terrible his life is, and how much hurt he's causing others. You feel bad for your buddy, but after a certain point, hoo, man, look at the time, gotta run!

"On the Beach at Night Alone" exemplifies all of the worst tendencies of Hong's films without many of his better qualities. It's a typical Hong movie in the sense that Hong is concerned with a woman's vaguely defined sense of independence, and a couple of men's growing irrelevance. "On the Beach at Night Alone" is also very much like Hong's other films in that it's unmistakably told from a man's point-of-view. The words Hong puts in Kim's mouth may, in fact, reflect a keen insight into his lover's feelings. But, outside of that context, Kim's character, an aimless actress named Young-hee, often rationalizes deeply personal, and painful feelings—on Hong's behalf. 

Young-hee spends the first third of "On the Beach at Night Alone" talking circles around her mild-mannered friend Jeeyoung (Young-hwa Seo). Almost every one of Jeeyoung and Young-hee's conversations concern the latter woman's romantic affair with a married man. Young-hee seems resigned to this situation, so she only speaks passionately about this relationship within the abstract: everybody should have the right to independence, and happiness, or variations thereof become a common speechifying theme. This is probably because Hong's wife has, in real life, refused to grant him a divorce. So now he promotes his affair with Kim as much as possible in a vain ongoing attempt at getting his unhappy spouse to change her mind.