Aloners

Jina works in the call centre of a credit card company and posts the highest performance every month, for a simple reason: she does not talk to anyone. She eats watching her phone, does not see her father, and does not know her neighbours. The man in the next flat dies and nobody notices for days. Then a new trainee is assigned to her and she has to train him. In her first film Hong Sung-eun presents solitude as both a choice and a defence and never tries to correct Jina. Gong Seung-yeon plays her almost expressionless. The rise in single-person households in Korea is the film's direct subject. The ending arrives as a small gesture and promises nothing more. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet Korean independents and stories about being alone in a city. Who it is not for: anyone wanting incident, since almost nothing happens.