Everything in ‘Parasite’ will keep you guessing
South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-ho (“The Host,” “Snowpiercer,” “Okja”) hasn’t yet made anything that looks, feels or makes viewers react like anything else he’s made. That path continues with “Parasite,” a dramatic comedy — or is it a comedic drama? — that takes an unconventional trip down the road to thrillerdom, with so many twists along the way, if the film had a neck, there would be a crick in it.
At a basic storytelling level, the film is about two contemporary families, each of different monetary, social and class status. The Park family — mom, dad, teenage daughter, young son — resides in resplendent wealth. The Kim family — mom, dad, teenage son and daughter — lives in a small basement room, where they eke by, sharing the job of folding boxes for a pizza joint.
Opportunity knocks when a friend of Kim son Ki-Woo offers him a temporary job, substituting for him as an English language tutor for the Park daughter Da-Hye. Though he has no qualifications, Ki-Woo and his family are desperate for money, so he decides to accept, then fake his way through it.
It’s important to note that the members of the poor Kim family are not the brightest bulbs, and that, though the Park family comes across as being smarter, they are much more naïve than the Kims. The reason that’s important is because before long, these two quartets are going to be at odds with each other. One is going to attempt to con the other and there will be resulting retribution.
This much can be revealed: It’s the oblivious rich folks that are going to become the targets of the far craftier poor folks. Once Ki-Woo gets himself ensconced in the Park household, and actually does a good job teaching English to Da-Hye, he takes a look around him, and sees opportunities. It’s not too long before all four Kims are working for the Parks, with the Parks remaining unaware of the deceit going on around them in their own home. But that’s just part of the involved and involving storyline.
To call it unpredictable is an understatement. But aside from an extremely violent outburst near the end (you’ve now been warned), it’s all presented in an almost casual style. Also, there are more people in the cast than just the two families, and their existence makes the story shift around in not-so-casual ways.
Everything about the film can be neatly summed up in one piece of dialogue: “If you make a plan, life never works out that way.”