Keys to the Heart

Choi Sung-hyun's 2018 South Korean film brings together a family long out of contact. Jo-ha is a former boxer whose career is over and who has no money, and with nowhere left to go he returns to the mother he left years ago. There he meets the half-brother he knew of but had never met; Jin-tae is autistic and has an extraordinary gift at the piano. The film is about the effort to close the distance between the brothers, but the mother's own past and the guilt she carries towards both sons is the real weight of the story. The tone moves between comedy and drama and the emotional passages are used openly. Youn Yuh-jung's mother carries the balance. Who it's for: viewers who like Korean family drama. Who it's not for: anyone who finds the depiction of autism through exceptional talent a problem; the film keeps to that pattern.