Review | Birthday film review: Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu in mournful drama set after 2014 Sewol ferry disaster

Lead actors play estranged parents mourning their son, killed in real-life sinking; the boy’s mother hasn’t accepted his death, and wants a divorce

Those looking for a film about the disaster and its aftermath will be disappointed; this is a masterclass in mournfulness, but focused on one family’s grief

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Jeon Do-yeon in a still from Birthday (category I; Korean), directed by Lee Jong-un. Sul Kyung-gu co-stars.

Published: 5:00pm, 28 May 2019Updated: 5:00pm, 28 May 2019

3.5/5 stars

In Birthday, South Korean heavyweights Sul Kyung-gu and Jeon Do-yeon deliver a masterclass in on-screen bereavement as parents grieving after their son’s death in the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster.

Viewers looking for a dramatic reconstruction of the tragedy, or an investigation into its controversial aftermath, will be sorely disappointed, however. Writer-director Lee Jong-un trains his focus solely on the Jeong family, and specifically the efforts of its estranged patriarch Jung-il (Sul) to ingratiate himself into the fractured household two years after the tragedy.

Returning to Seoul following a stint overseas “making money”, Jung-il discovers that his wife, Soon-nam (Jeon), has failed to move on from the death of their son: she continues to buy clothes and food for Su-ho (Yoon Chan-young), while his bedroom remains exactly as he left it.

Soon-nam all but refuses to communicate with Jung-il on his return, and greets him, not with a smile, but with divorce papers, which he refuses to sign. He has better luck with their daughter, Ye-sol (played by astonishing eight-year-old Kim Bo-min). Despite having only vague memories of her father, she warms to him quickly, finding in Jung-il the comfort and attention she has been deprived of by her mother.