The Novelist’s Film—A quiet day of chance encounters that rewrites a life
Introduction
On a gray afternoon that looks like a half‑remembered photograph, a novelist walks through a small town outside Seoul and discovers that the only way forward is to make something with her own hands. Have you ever wandered like that—half hoping a friend will be home, half afraid of what you’ll say if they answer? I pressed play expecting a whisper of a movie and found a companion: people who talk too much, drink a little, say the wrong thing, and still somehow keep choosing one another. I kept thinking about how the day‑to‑day decisions—send a text, take a train, stop for coffee—are the real plot twists of our lives. And because I’m always balancing movie nights with an ordinary budget, I smiled at the thought that a best credit card for streaming can be as practical as a warm coat when the weather of your heart turns cold. By the end, The Novelist’s Film had me feeling braver about my own messy drafts, as if the film were quietly asking, What if your next honest step is already waiting in the room you’re about to enter?
Overview
Title: The Novelist’s Film (소설가의 영화)
Year: 2022.
Genre: Drama; black‑and‑white, conversation‑driven character piece.
Main Cast: Lee Hye‑young, Kim Min‑hee, Seo Young‑hwa, Kwon Hae‑hyo.
Runtime: 92 minutes.
Streaming Platform: Apple TV (rent/buy), Fandango at Home/Vudu (rent/buy), and Kanopy with participating libraries. Not currently on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Viki, or Kocowa.
Director: Hong Sang‑soo; Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, Berlinale 2022.
Overall Story
The movie begins with Jun‑hee, a respected novelist who has stopped writing, taking a quiet daytrip to see an old friend who runs a tiny bookstore. The streets are wintry, the sky is soft, the light is the color of paper—everything pared back to essentials, like the way we remember important days after the noise fades. Jun‑hee isn’t just here for nostalgia; she wants to look at someone who already chose a life after writing and ask, silently, what that looks like. Their reunion is gentle and slightly awkward, affection tangled with old grievances and unasked questions. A younger assistant recognizes Jun‑hee immediately, awed to meet a writer she studied, and in that starstruck warmth you can feel how success and isolation sometimes sit at the same table. From the very first scene, the film invites us to notice pauses and glances as much as words, hinting that a change is coming even if nobody can name it yet.
Over coffee, the bookstore owner admits she more or less vanished from the literary world; Jun‑hee replies with compliments that land like apologies. They talk about bodies aging and work drying up, and a little sign‑language phrase the assistant shares turns into a tiny ceremony of connection—one of those “nothing” moments you somehow remember for years. In this space, Hong Sang‑soo’s long, steady shots make you feel the time it takes to say something honest out loud. You can sense Jun‑hee measuring herself against a possible future—one that looks comfortable, yes, but also a bit dim, a bit lonely. Have you ever visited a friend and seen your own fear reflected back at you? Jun‑hee leaves the shop with politeness and a restless heart, the kind of restlessness that will soon tilt her day into a different life.
In a nearby park, Jun‑hee bumps into Hyo‑jin, a film director who once promised to adapt her novel, and his wife. The conversation is civil but prickly; old disappointments peep out from under formal smiles. Jun‑hee’s bluntness is funny until it isn’t—she implies he sold out, he retreats behind excuses, and we feel the gap between artists who protect their spark and those who manage their careers. Still, they walk together, and for a few minutes the three of them resemble a fragile, temporary family assembled by chance. Hong understands how walks can do what arguments can’t: reset the body so the mind can breathe. When the stroll ends, nothing has resolved, but a path has opened in Jun‑hee that she can now follow.
Another accident: at the park Jun‑hee meets Kil‑soo, a celebrated actress in her own period of quiet. They recognize each other—professionally, but also as kindred spirits—and go to lunch along with Kil‑soo’s nephew Gyeong‑woo, a film student eager to help anybody brave enough to make something. Over soup and small plates, the nervous energy smooths out into laughter and honest talk about why art sometimes stops. The air feels lighter around Kil‑soo; she doesn’t perform charm, she offers attention, and you can see how quickly Jun‑hee’s imagination attaches itself to that warmth. Then the idea arrives, almost shyly: What if I make a film, and what if you’re in it? Everyone at the table hears the click of a door unlocking.
Jun‑hee is careful with the details: it won’t be complicated, it won’t copy anything she despises, and it will be made with the people in front of her—Kil‑soo, her potter husband, and Gyeong‑woo behind the camera. There’s relief in the room when she says it; the plan isn’t big, it’s true. At some point a practical thought flickers through your own mind about resources and time, the same way you decide whether to rent a film or buy it, or whether that high‑yield savings account labeled “travel” can cover a festival trip next spring. The movie lingers on ordinary textures—tea cups, coats, stairs—because that’s where the promise of a different life begins. Jun‑hee, who arrived as a visitor, now leaves as a director who hasn’t shot a thing yet but already feels more awake. The black‑and‑white images echo that fresh resolve, their simplicity suddenly vivid.
In the afternoon, Jun‑hee and Kil‑soo stroll through a public garden and an observation tower, and the conversation leans tender. They compare the kinds of attention they receive—novelist, actress—and notice how both can be cruel, or simply exhausting, when you’re no longer performing the role people chose for you. Kil‑soo calls the proposed film “small,” but the word sounds like praise. Jun‑hee admits she’s stopped drinking for her health, a rare self‑check in a Hong Sang‑soo world where alcohol often greases the talk; even this tiny decision feels like a scene partner to the bigger decision to make a film. The park’s winter branches and empty paths make a natural set, a place where you instinctively lower your voice and tell the truth. By the time they part, you feel they’ve signed a contract of trust without ever touching a pen.
Evening brings everyone back to the bookstore, where a few more characters drift in: the assistant, a rumpled poet from Jun‑hee’s past, and neighbors with open bottles and open feelings. The tone is merry and a little messy; it turns into one of those nights when people keep saying goodbye and nobody leaves. Someone nudges Jun‑hee to drink; she stays kind but firm, and you can see how boundaries make room for braver art. Kil‑soo, who’s given so much steadiness all day, finally lets the warmth wash over her and falls asleep right there, the way friends do when being together feels more restorative than getting home. There’s no big speech to mark it, which is exactly why it matters. Hong’s cinema believes that trust is built in the background while other people are telling their stories.
The next day (or maybe only an hour later, because time in this film flows like conversation), they shoot the short “novelist’s film.” We don’t watch Jun‑hee calling action or arguing about lenses; we feel the hush of doing. The camera gazes at Kil‑soo with a quiet that borders on devotion—her face open, her hands moving through a small cluster of flowers, the body unarmored. It’s a modest act, but modesty is the point: the film is built from truth in the room, not ambition on a spreadsheet. How many projects in our lives fail because we plan them until they can’t breathe? Jun‑hee, finally, is choosing breath.
When the short is screened later, Gyeong‑woo arranges the practicalities while Jun‑hee slips to the roof to smoke and pace like any artist waiting to find out if what she made connects. Inside, Kil‑soo watches herself with surprising calm, as if she recognizes a version of her that the public almost never gets to see. The film within the film is mostly black and white, harmonizing with the day we’ve just lived alongside these characters. Then, in a small miracle, color arrives—flowers turn radiant, a melody is hummed, the images confess their love of being alive. It doesn’t feel like a technical trick; it feels like a pulse returning.
As endings go, it’s barely an ending at all: no judgments, no pronouncements, only the sensation that Jun‑hee has stepped back into the current after standing on the bank for too long. On the walk home, you might realize that the movie has been quietly asking whether sincerity is still allowed—on screens, in friendships, in the next email you send. For me, the answer felt like relief. The Novelist’s Film trusts that a simple plan, held with care, can carry us out of a long winter. And that’s why I think this gentle, conversational movie lingers: it suggests that the life you want might begin with one brave invitation said out loud.
Highlight Scenes / Unforgettable Moments
The Bookstore Reunion: Jun‑hee’s entrance into the cramped shop has the vulnerability of returning to an old classroom; she and the owner circle each other with compliments and tiny jabs. The assistant’s shy lesson in a sign‑language phrase turns the scene into a brief ritual of tenderness. It’s funny, too—Jun‑hee notes her friend has gained weight and then insists “it suits you,” the kind of flustered love that can only happen between people who remember each other from a different decade. The moment shows how Hong builds drama out of micro‑gestures, not plot contrivances. It also establishes the theme that language—spoken, signed, or withheld—can both wound and heal.
The Park Encounter with the Director: When Hyo‑jin appears, the temperature in the frame changes by a few degrees. He once promised to adapt Jun‑hee’s book; now his explanation for why it never happened sounds like a press release even to his own ears. Jun‑hee’s frankness strips away the last of their polite theater, and the scene becomes a duel fought with courteous smiles. The conversation doesn’t explode; it cools. That restraint makes the sting feel more real, and it primes Jun‑hee to choose a path that doesn’t require anyone’s permission.
Lunch with Kil‑soo: The most generous scene in the movie begins as small talk and opens into a promise. Kil‑soo listens like she’s giving a gift, and across the table Jun‑hee hears herself say the words that will change everything: I want to make a film with you. Gyeong‑woo leans forward, already troubleshooting logistics, and for a moment the table feels like a studio, a classroom, and a family all at once. Hong’s camera hardly moves, but you feel the room shift around the decision. Have you ever said something out loud and realized you’d been waiting years to say it?
The Garden Walk: Jun‑hee and Kil‑soo wander through winter branches, talking about beauty and the right size of a project. The sequence is spare enough to feel like a memory you could slip into your pocket. Jun‑hee’s offhand comment about cutting back on drinking lands with unusual weight in a Hong film, as if she’s proving to herself that new choices are possible. Their laughter is unhurried and slightly private, and the park’s open air makes the conversation feel cleaner than anything that happened indoors. By the end of the walk, their collaboration has the glow of something found, not forced.
The After‑Hours Bookstore: Night gathers, bottles appear, and the poet Mansoo shuffles in with opinions and a past. The actress dozes off mid‑gathering, and instead of embarrassment the group treats it like tenderness—proof that safety has been built in this little room. This is the most “Hong Sang‑soo” scene in the film: stories bumping into stories, nobody quite ready to leave because staying feels like hope. Jun‑hee’s refusal to drink reads like a quiet vow to keep faith with the film she hasn’t finished yet. The sequence captures how community can revive ambition without turning into an intervention.
The Color Bloom: In the film‑within‑the‑film, Kil‑soo looks into the camera, touches flowers, and hums the “Bridal Chorus”; then the grayscale melts into saturated color. The change isn’t loud, it’s tender—like someone opening the curtain a few inches to let winter light onto a kitchen table. You feel the movie declare, without speeches, that sincerity is cinematic. It’s also meta‑cinema: a tiny confession of love for the actress, for the collaboration, for choosing life before style. The final image sends you back into your own day with a warmer pulse.
Memorable Lines
“You stopped writing?” – A friend voices the question Jun‑hee has been avoiding The line lands like a soft punch because it names the fear behind all her small talk. It pushes the film from nostalgic catching‑up into the present tense of decision. In the pauses after, you can watch Jun‑hee choose honesty over vanity. That single question clears space for a different story to begin.
“I want to make a film with you.” – Jun‑hee, asking Kil‑soo for partnership instead of permission It’s a proposal disguised as a casual thought, and it changes the air in the room. The line matters because it’s not grand; it’s specific, humble, and directed at one person. Jun‑hee doesn’t want the industry; she wants this person in front of her. The request models the courage the film believes in: say the thing that will make the rest of your day look different.
“Fix life first.” – Hyo‑jin, half brag and half warning about the trap of self‑mythology The sentiment is prickly because coming from him it sounds like a slogan, but it lingers anyway. The line reframes the story: the problem isn’t that Jun‑hee can’t write; it’s that she’s been asking writing to fix things life must. Later, her boundary with alcohol and her choice to make a small film answer him without argument. Hong threads this idea through the finale with a grace that never points at itself.
“It really happened—that’s enough.” – Kil‑soo, on why the tiny film doesn’t need a hook The phrase is a credo for the entire movie, which trusts ordinary time more than manufactured drama. It turns “small” into a compliment and gives Jun‑hee permission to ignore pitch‑meeting logic. In friendships and in art, truth is the only marketing plan that matters here. The line also quietly redefines success as fidelity to experience.
“Look.” – The camera, and maybe Hong himself, addressing Kil‑soo in the last shots It isn’t a spoken word so much as the ethic of the gaze: attention as love. When the image shifts to color, “look” becomes an invitation to see what’s already alive rather than invent what isn’t. The moment suggests that art is sometimes just the courage to keep looking until a person becomes visible to herself. It sent me searching my own routines for a door I might open next.
Why It's Special
The Novelist’s Film feels like a quiet afternoon you didn’t plan, one that somehow resets your heart. If you’re in the United States, it’s easy to find right now: you can rent or buy it on Apple TV and Fandango at Home, and many viewers can even stream it free on Kanopy with a participating library card, which makes an intimate auteur film surprisingly accessible for weeknight viewing.
At its core is a gentle story about Jun-hee, a novelist who runs into an actress and flirts with the idea of making a film, a premise that invites us to look at creativity as a living thing rather than a job description. The plot moves like a meandering walk—bookstore to park bench to café—letting conversations breathe until they reveal the small embarrassments and brave admissions that real friendships are made of. Have you ever felt this way, that a single, unhurried chat could change the weather inside you?
Hong Sang-soo shoots in lucid black-and-white, unfussy and unafraid of silence; then, in a final flourish, he lets color bloom. That restrained palette makes every laugh, sideways glance, and cup of tea feel deliberate, as if the film is quietly tuning your attention to life’s minor keys. It’s a look that matches the movie’s tenderness: simple on the surface, precise underneath.
Because the camera lingers, the writing has room to do something rare: it lets two artists talk honestly about doubt without turning their doubt into spectacle. The dialogue is breezy but pointed, circling around what it means to make anything at all when the world urges you to hurry and compete. Even when the characters disagree, there’s a gentle politeness that makes their confessions land with more truth than drama.
The performances extend that feeling. When the novelist and the actress find each other’s rhythm, their scenes play like jazz—call and response, hesitations, riffs, a shared smile that becomes the real crescendo. You don’t need sweeping plot twists to feel a pulse; you just need people willing to be a little braver than they were in the previous scene.
There’s also a playful meta-cinema at work: a film about a novelist who decides to make a film, directed by a filmmaker famous for turning everyday talk into revelation. That double mirror never becomes gimmickry; it’s more like an invitation to see how stories are born—through chance meetings, stubborn curiosity, and a willingness to be surprised.
By the time the credits roll, you may feel oddly renewed, like you went out for coffee and accidentally came back with a small, luminous answer. The Novelist’s Film is special because it trusts the ordinary to be more than enough, and because it trusts you to notice.
Popularity & Reception
The Novelist’s Film premiered in competition at the Berlin International Film Festival and won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, a jury led by M. Night Shyamalan praising its mastery of simplicity. That accolade didn’t just crown a festival run; it affirmed how Hong’s minimalist cinema can still surprise even the most seasoned juries.
In the U.S., critics embraced the movie with rare unanimity. It currently holds a 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 83 Metascore on Metacritic—numbers that read less like hype and more like consensus around a small film that does exactly what it means to.
Reviewers highlighted its modesty and its restorative warmth. The New York Times likened it to a finely observed mosaic of chance encounters, while the Los Angeles Times praised the way it turns creative frustration into renewal. When a film this unhurried still feels invigorating, you know it’s hitting nerves that audiences carry quietly.
Word-of-mouth among global Hong Sang-soo fans has been particularly affectionate. The Cinema Guild’s U.S. release on disc and digital broadened access beyond art-house corridors, so the film’s soft power—its conversations, its gentle jokes—could ripple through living rooms as easily as repertory theaters.
What’s striking is how the film’s glow has lasted. Even as Hong kept collecting major honors—he won another Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize in 2024 for a different film—viewers and critics kept circling back to The Novelist’s Film as one of his most open-hearted recent works. Some movies are events; this one became a companion.
Cast & Fun Facts
Lee Hye-young anchors the movie as Jun-hee, the novelist whose stalled writing nudges her toward cinema. Lee plays her with a mix of dry wit and shy candor, making each apology, compliment, and self-correction feel like a breadcrumb trail through a creative mind. It’s a performance that respects how artists often think aloud, cautiously, before they dare to act.
What makes Lee’s work linger is her listening. Watch the way she lets other people finish, how she tilts her head as if rearranging a sentence mid-air; then, when she decides on something, the resolve is quiet but complete. That inner weather gives the film its steady barometer, letting the final choice—make the film—feel less like a twist than a homecoming.
Kim Min-hee plays Kilsoo, the actress Jun-hee hopes to cast, and her presence has the stillness of a lake at noon. She and Hong have been longtime collaborators, and you can feel the trust: long takes hold steady on her face as she weighs how much to say, how much to protect. The result is a portrait of an artist who understands that saying “no” clearly is sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself.
Kim’s glow here is not star wattage but human warmth. A laugh arrives a half-second late, an eye crinkles when a compliment lands, and suddenly the scene blooms. She makes Kilsoo’s hesitations feel generous, as if restraint could be an act of care—for the work, for the people in front of her, for her own future.
Seo Young-hwa appears in a role that threads the film’s social fabric, one of those Hong-verse presences who turn casual reunions into small x-rays. She helps sketch the ecosystem around the leads—bookstores, sidewalks, stairwells—so that the world feels lived-in rather than staged.
Her gift is understated guidance. A nudge here, a fond memory there, and suddenly you realize she’s mapped the emotional geography without claiming the spotlight. In a film about creative courage, Seo’s scenes show how community often hands you the map you didn’t know you needed.
Kwon Hae-hyo brings wry grace, the kind that loosens a tense conversation without erasing its stakes. As a frequent Hong collaborator, he knows exactly how long to hold a beat before a line lands, and how to make an awkward moment feel like a door opening, not closing.
Kwon’s chemistry with the ensemble adds low-key humor—smiles that reach the eyes, apologies that double as invitations to keep talking. In a universe of glances, he’s the reminder that kindness can be a rhythm, and that art sometimes needs a bit of mischief to stay honest.
Hong Sang-soo, the director and writer, also served as cinematographer, editor, and composer—a one-man orchestra shaping the movie’s patience and pulse. Shot over a short period around the outskirts of Seoul, the film embodies his belief that the simplest tools can yield the clearest truths; the late shift from black-and-white to color is both a stylistic wink and an emotional exhale.
Conclusion / Warm Reminders
If you’ve ever felt stuck and secretly hoped a chance meeting might nudge you forward, The Novelist’s Film will feel like a letter addressed to you. Find it on Apple TV, Fandango at Home, or Kanopy, settle in with a cup of tea, and let its softness do its work. If you’re watching on public Wi‑Fi, using the best VPN for streaming keeps your movie night smooth, and if you rent films often, a cash back credit card can make those quiet evenings gentler on your wallet. Sometimes the smallest film is exactly the one that restores your faith in trying again.
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