JP Nunez
As a hardcore horror fan, I watch a lot of bleak movies. In fact, before I saw FAQ, every film I watched at Fantasia this year was at least somewhat on the gloomier side. I just tend to gravitate towards these movies, but every once in a while, I want something a bit more lighthearted. As the old saying goes, variety is the spice of life, and when I heard about FAQ, the movie seemed like just the tonal shift I needed. The Fantasia plot synopsis described it as a “heartwarming and touching coming-of-age story with an interesting sci-fi element,” so I figured it would be the perfect change of pace from dark and desolate horror and action.
FAQ was written and directed by Kim Da-min, and it stars Kim Hie-won, Park Hyo-joo, and Park Na-eun. The film follows Dong-chun, a young girl whose mother is obsessed with enrolling her daughter in various after-school programs. The kid studies math, science, art, various languages, and a few other things, so understandably, she’s pretty stressed out.
Dong-chun also has a bit of trouble fitting in with her peers at school, but one day, her luck suddenly changes. She comes across a bottle of rice wine that can communicate in Morse code, and when she befriends this oddity, it leads her to become the person she was always meant to be.
I have to be honest, I didn’t love FAQ right from the get-go. When the movie began, I didn’t find any of the characters particularly charming or interesting, so it took me a while to really get into the story. But thankfully, everything fell into place soon enough.
I eventually came to see just how much pressure Dong-chun’s mother was putting on her daughter, and when that happened, I got on board with the kid pretty quickly. See, the woman doesn’t just enroll Dong-chun in a bunch of after-school programs. She apparently expects the girl to dedicate as much time as possible to her studies as well, and she even wants her daughter to be taller. It’s just a bit too much, so you can’t help but feel for the poor kid.
On top of that, FAQ also features some really fun humor, and that also went a long way towards changing my mind about the film. Every once in a while, Dong-chun will imagine seeing Teletubby-esque characters from a TV show, and when they appear on screen, they’re a hoot and a half. Everything about these things—from their facial expressions to the way they talk to their general appearance—is absolutely hilarious, so I actually wish the film used them a little bit more.
Then, when Dong-chun finds the mysterious bottle of rice wine, FAQ gets even better. This new friend makes her want to succeed in her Persian class, and that’s just nice to see. The poor girl is under so much pressure to make her mother proud that you’ll inevitably feel all warm and fuzzy inside when she finds something that makes her happy.
What’s more, this talking rice wine also adds an element of mystery to the movie. It immediately makes you wonder how a beverage can have any sort of consciousness or intelligence, and even though the film doesn’t harp on this question, it will linger in the back of your mind and make you even more invested in Dong-chun’s story.
That being said, I also had a bit of an issue with this sentient wine. It communicates by making bubbles as if it were carbonated, and the sounds from those bubbles are supposed to mimic the long and short beeps of Morse code. But if you ask me, they sound nothing like Morse code. I was never able to hear anything beyond an indistinguishable mass of random bubble noises, and I definitely couldn’t tell which ones were long and which were short.
To be fair, none of that affects the story of FAQ, but it did keep me from suspending my disbelief and fully buying into that story. The movie just didn’t make me truly believe that this bottle of rice wine was communicating with Dong-chun, so every time it started to bubble up, it took me out of the story a tiny bit.
Thankfully though, that’s little more than a glorified nitpick, so it didn’t ruin the entire experience. In fact, when I finally got to the third act, it eventually stopped being a problem altogether. I can’t say why without spoiling the ending, but I can say that the last half hour is the best part of the film.
The rice wine leads Dong-chun on a strange journey that will keep you guessing every step of the way, and when she finally reaches her destination, FAQ takes on a whole new meaning. The end turns the movie into a touching metaphor for the natural progression from childhood into adulthood, and somewhat surprisingly, it especially highlights the importance of the after-school activities Dong-chun’s mother had enrolled her in.
But it’s not all about hard work and sacrifice. In a subtler way, this ending also shows how important it is to let kids have fun and be imaginative. The film never makes that point explicitly, but the fact that Dong-chun is led to her destination by a talking bottle of rice wine makes it clear enough.
So at the end of the day, I’m happy to report that I had a good time with FAQ. While the movie gets off to a bit of a rocky start, it quickly rights the ship and ends up being a heartwarming and sometimes hilarious coming-of-age story. I wouldn’t quite call it a must see, but if you do get a chance to watch it sometime in the future, it’ll be more than worth your time.
FAQ played at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 24, and it’ll be playing again on July 25.
